


Hard Out Here

by Anisoptera_Nigra



Series: Girl on Fire [3]
Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-27 11:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anisoptera_Nigra/pseuds/Anisoptera_Nigra
Summary: Set post S3. June struggles to adapt to life in Canada after escaping Gilead with Hannah and Nick. Part three of a three part series, but the other two are not essential reading.
Relationships: Luke Bankole/June Osborne | Offred, Nick Blaine/June Osborne | Offred
Series: Girl on Fire [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213163
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	1. Tuello

**Author's Note:**

> The first two parts are really a prequel to this, the main story. If you haven't read them all you need to know is that June has escaped Gilead with Hannah and Nick. She has reunited with Luke and Moira and Nick has been arrested. Now they must all struggle to move forward with their lives. The main focus of the fic is June/Nick, but I also wanted to do justice to June and Luke's relationship. The story is finished, but I will post a couple of chapters at a time as I check through them again and get them polished up. Overall it is rather self-indulgently long, but I writing has been a bit of therapy for me during these strange times we are currently living in, so I don't apologise for that. I do apologise for any errors anyone spots, I don't have a beta, so all the mistakes are mine.

I am meeting Mark Tuello today. I put it off as long as I could, but he had been insistent and I had run out of excuses. At first it had been easy. There had been medical and psychological evaluations to attend for both me and Hannah. There was the debrief at the refugee centre where they collected some basic facts about where we had both been for the last five years. We needed to shop for clothes, set up a phone and a bank account, think about schooling for Hannah, fill in endless numbers of legal forms. Then there had been Nichole.

I discovered on the day I arrived back in Canada that Luke had left her with someone called Erin. It had hurt at first to know my daughter was being looked after by someone I had never even heard of, but I supposed I would have to get used to the fact there was so much of her life I knew nothing about.

She is eighteen months old now and unimaginably changed from the newborn I put into Emily’s arms. She has glossy chestnut curls and dark eyes that are serious like her father’s. Most days I am glad that Luke only met Nick once and doesn’t have to constantly see the echo of him in his daughter’s features. Instead he sees me in the way she juts out her jaw determinedly, and Hannah as a baby in the way she toddles around the living room on chunky little legs, stumbling from one adult to another, asking to be picked up all the time. He sees these things because he loves her like she is his own daughter.

I remember a conversation I had with Nick once. Not a conversation, an argument.

_I don’t have a daughter_ , he said.

_What the fuck?_ I said back.

_My daughter was called Holly,_ he replied angrily. _She was supposed to get out if here with her mother. But you sent her away and now she doesn’t exist anymore. Now she’s Baby Nichole and Luke is her father._

He hadn’t said any more. Hadn’t said the unspoken, that she would grow up never knowing who he was, or worse still thinking her real father was some kind of Gilead rapist monster. I’d wanted to explain that Luke wasn’t like that, that he would be fair and respectful to Nick. But I knew it would just sound like hollow words, and besides it was so long since I had seen Luke, how could I even be sure he _was_ like that anymore?

In the end we made up by having sex. We did that a lot. It was easier than talking things through. We could say things with our bodies we could never quite manage in words.

I understand now a little of what he felt. Holly, my daughter, doesn’t exist. How I’d imagined her in my head isn’t at all like how she is. First, and most heartbreakingly, she has no idea who I am.

She cried when I held her the first time. I think maybe I squeezed her too tight. After that she mostly ignored me, preferring to go to Luke, or Moira, or Erin. Fucking Erin who I have nothing against – after all, she was a handmaid too – but who feels like a stranger in our family.

_Don’t worry_ , the social worker said when she came for a home visit to check on how Nichole was adjusting to me and Hannah moving in. _It’s just stranger anxiety, she’ll get over it, just give her some time_.

I’m not the fucking stranger in this house, I thought. I’m her mother.

I’ve been giving it time. I’ve been staying home with her, trying to find out the things she likes, letting her get used to me. It is getting better, but she is still quiet and withdrawn with me in a way she isn’t around other people. Maybe it's because I’m quiet and withdrawn too, and I can’t help some of it rubbing off.

_You’re trying too hard_ , the social worker said next. _Let her go back to her usual routine. She’ll adjust gradually, children always do._

Ordinary is just what you’re used to, I thought. In time this too will become ordinary.

So, Nichole has gone back to daycare. Hannah has started back at school. It is a special school, of course, for refugee children from Gilead. She will have to learn to read and write again before she can go back to mainstream school. Even then she will probably drop back a grade or two. But, you know, her needlepoint is excellent and she can recite bible scripture by heart, so at least we have Gilead to thank for fucking something.

I am bitter and angry, I have to let go of those feelings, I have to look towards the future.

Hannah likes school, she has made a friend there – Rebecca who was on the plane of kids I got out of Gilead last year, the one I pointed a gun at. They are about the same age, Rebecca has been back in Canada a little while now, she is helping Hannah adjust. I am grateful. I hate what they did to my daughter, but I am glad now that she has a chance at a normal life, that she is still young enough to bounce back.

Nichole is in daycare, Hannah is in school, Luke has gone back to work, and I stay in the apartment all day waiting for them to come home, waiting for something to happen to me. I am free now, I can do whatever I want to do, and instead I stay home and wait.

Tuello called when I was home alone and I had no reasons left to put him off anymore, so we arranged the meeting. He sent a car to pick me up and now I am alone in a room with him at the American Embassy. It is a pleasant room, lots of light, comfortable sofas. He offers me coffee, and I accept, anything to put off the conversation. I think of Fred and Serena still held somewhere in this building, indefinitely awaiting their trials. Are they in rooms like this too? Are they being offered the same coffee?

“Ms Osborne,” Tuello begins. “Can I call you June, is that okay?”

I shrug. My name has little meaning here, anyone can use it. “June is fine.”

“Good,” he smiles in what is supposed to be a friendly, reassuring way. “Thank you for coming in today.”

“No problem.”

“You’re probably wondering why we’re so keen to talk to you June.”

I shrug again, sip my coffee, say nothing.

“You’re aware we have Fred and Serena Waterford in custody here.”

I nod, not trusting my voice.

“Well,” he sighs. “We were hopeful we could charge them both with crimes against humanity, but it’s proving a little trickier than we thought.”

I look up at him, wary, still saying nothing. Gilead has trained me well. Never volunteer information. Don’t answer unless asked a direct question.

“Essentially we were relying on Serena’s testimony against Commander Waterford to indict him. Now he has turned against Serena and is making accusations against her – ”

I can’t resist speaking now, it's so typical of their fucked up marriage that something like this would happen. “Now it’s just one big ‘he said, she said’ shit show?” I offer.

Tuello smiles and nods. “Exactly, their lawyers are arguing their evidence is emotionally biased and therefore inadmissible. We need independent witnesses to bring the case forward, otherwise we will have no choice but to release them back to Gilead.”

I can’t help the jolt of horror that rocks we at the thought of that. Fred and Serena back in Gilead, returning as heroes probably, untouchable even by the might of foreign governments, back to spinning their webs of evil and manipulation.

“Okay,” I nod. “What do you need from me?”

“Accounts of abuse you received from either of them. You were Commander Waterford’s Handmaid, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“And as such you were subject to the ritual known as ‘The Ceremony’?”

I stiffen, memories coming unbidden. Kneeling while he read the bible, knowing what was coming. Lying on the bed, my wrists bound by Serena’s hands, staring at the blue ceiling while he pulled up my skirt, touched my legs, pushed himself inside me. The warmth dribbling down my thigh afterwards.

“He raped me, yes,” I answer.

Tuello nods sympathetically, making notes on a pad in front of him. “And did he force you to engage in any sexual activity outside the ceremony?”

Jezebels. The gold dress and fuck me pumps. The hotel room where he encouraged me to be as loud as I liked. The whole thing presented as a special ‘treat’.

“Yes.” My voice sounds flat and monotonous to my own ears. “There was a place, a special club for the Commanders, they sent women there who couldn’t _assimilate_ , made them into prostitutes. My friend Moira worked there. He took me there a couple of times, had me dress up for him, took me to one of the rooms there so we could have sex.”

Tuello doesn’t react. He has heard too many of these stories already. “Your friend Moira, did she have sex with him there too?”

“Yes.”

“Okay we’ll get her in another day and talk to her,” he paused, looking up at me for a second, seeing how I am doing. I meet his eyes steadily, daring him to ask more questions, I am ready for them.

“Now, Mrs Waterford,” Tuello begins and I tense. For some reason discussion of Serena bothers me more. Maybe it’s because I wanted so desperately to reach out to her, to connect with her on some base level of female sisterhood, and she threw it back in my face every single time.

“Our main charge against her is that she orchestrated your rape by her driver, Mr Blaine, in order to claim the child from any resulting pregnancy. She denies this, of course.”

My heart beats faster. Just the mention of Nick’s name puts me in a panic. I don’t want to say anything that will get him in more trouble. I don’t want to talk about him at all.

“I can tell you other things she did,” I offer. “She would hit me. She locked me in my room for two weeks straight just because I wasn’t pregnant that month. When I was expecting my daughter – ” I break off, swallowing hard, this one will be difficult to recall, but still better than talking about Nick. “When it was getting close to her due date, Serena wanted to make the baby come faster, so she suggested to Fred that he rape me to help bring the labour on. I begged for her to stop, but she held me down while he did it.”

Even Tuello flinches at this. Under the horror is a tiny undertone of disappointment and I think maybe he kind of likes Serena and was hoping for better things from her. Well, he can join the club, I always hoped for better things from her too, but I never got them.

Tuello makes a long note on his legal pad. “That’s very helpful,” he manages. “But we’ll need confirmation about the driver. No one disputes Mr Blaine is the biological father of your child, is that correct?”

I nod, I can hardly deny this, they have it on tape after all.

“And did Mrs Waterford arrange for sexual intercourse to take place between you and Mr Blaine in the hope that a child would be conceived?”

“Yes,” I admit and with that one word I am back in that room. Nick is standing over me, his face as blank as ever, but something there behind the eyes that I am desperate to try and reach. His belt clanks slightly as he undoes it. He thrusts into me, his face turned away from mine. Serena tries not to look, but can’t help it. I don’t know what to do with my hands, they are usually tied up in Serena’s. I reach out, clasp his arm. He looks at me, there is a flash of connection when I suddenly feel all the things he is feeling – regret, anger, desire, hatred for everything in this godforsaken place. Then he finishes and the connection is broken, but I want it back, I want to feel anything human.

“OK,” Tuello says. “That’s enough for today, I think. Thank you for coming in June.”

“Wait,” I reply, confused. “That’s it? What about Nick? I won’t testify that he raped me, if that’s what you want.”

Tuello looks at me with interest. “Mr Blaine is facing separate criminal proceedings. I doubt your evidence will be required. But if you were willing to come in another day – shall we say Friday? – we could discuss it further.”

“All right.” I agree, but when I leave the embassy, I can’t help feeling that Tuello has laid a trap and I have fallen straight into it.


	2. Rita

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June and Rita discuss Nick.

Rita is coming over for dinner this evening. I am glad to see her, she is one of the few good things I remember about Gilead. She dotes on Nichole and is good with Hannah too, plus she knows when to keep quiet and not push, something Moira and Luke are only just learning.

I understand, of course, that they want to know things. My life in Gilead was a black hole to them. Even Moira, who was there, saw only glimpses of it. She was never in that house with the Waterfords, never went to a salvaging, never had her children taken away from her. She has a Gilead that she carries in her head, and it is different to mine, yet she expects me to react in the same way to it.

A day or so after I came back Moira and Luke asked me what had happened, how I got Hannah and made it out. I hadn’t known what to say.

“You’re fucking amazing,” Luke kept repeating. “Rescuing Hannah and getting out safe. My wife is fucking incredible.”

“We had help,” was all I could manage.

“Commander Blaine sailed us to Canada in a boat,” Hannah added helpfully, and the atmosphere in the room seemed to freeze over.

“Nick got you out?” Luke asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “He got promoted to Commander, so he had some connections he could use.”

“Did he get out too? Where is he now?”

“I’m not sure,” I mumbled. “The police and immigration wanted to ask him some questions.”

“Well, I guess I should try and track him down and thank him,” Luke said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failing. “That’s another thing I owe him for.”

“Uh-hum- _bullshit_ ,” Moira did the hide-the-swearword-in-a-fake-cough thing. “I’m glad he got you out, girl, but nobody owes him anything. All Gilead men are the same twisted fucks. You stay away from him from now on.”

I looked at Moira stricken, I hadn’t yet tried to find out where they had taken Nick and what would happen to him, but I wanted to. “He’s my friend.” I told her. “He’s Nichole’s father.”

“A _friend_ wouldn’t have done what he did to you,” Moira spat back, the depth of her anger about Gilead still glaringly apparent. “And _Luke_ is Nichole’s father. He’s the one who’s been taking care of her for the past fourteen months.”

Hannah was watching the conversation, open-mouthed. Of course, she would never have heard adults speak to one another in this way in Gilead. Luke noticed, tried to calm things down.

“It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you got here and you’re safe and we can all be a family again.”

I nodded and smiled and hugged him, but didn’t know how to explain that what I had found here in Canada didn’t feel like my family anymore.

I was reunited with Rita the next day, and when she asked the same question – what had happened since she last saw me, how I got out? – it didn’t feel so difficult to answer. I wanted to tell her everything, how I had been shot but Lawrence sent me to Nick in Chicago where I could hide and be safe. I’d needed surgery so he couldn’t hide me completely, so they invented a new identity for me and I got sent to work as a Handmaid again. The new Commander had been an old man, barely capable of getting through the ceremonies. Life had been tolerable, mostly because I had a plan to get to Hannah, one that Nick had helped to realise.

Luke had been hovering in the background, however, still too protective of me and Hannah to leave us alone for more than a minute, so I had just given Rita the bare bones of the story, trying to ignore Luke’s pained reaction to each new revelation.

Rita had wanted to know more about Nick, of course. Where was he now? What was going to happen to him? It is the same this evening, once we have discussed the Waterfords she wants to know what Tuello said about Nick. She is too subtle to ask at the dinner table, however, so she corners me after dessert when I am preparing Nichole’s bedtime bottle. The subject of Nick is already a bone of contention between Rita and Moira.

_He took advantage of you_ , Moira will say whenever his name comes up. _He’s one of them. Just another Gilead rapist._

_Bullshit_ , Rita will snap back. _You know that man worships the ground you walk on._

Luke’s jaw twitches with the effort of saying nothing. He wants to be fair to Nick, is trying his hardest not to judge, and I love him for it. But part of me wishes he would get angrier about it. I cheated on him with another man, and all he seems to want to do is pretend it never happened.

“Did Tuello say anything about Nick?” she asks me in a low voice in the kitchen. She knows Mark Tuello, obviously, she has been sat in the same room and asked questions about the Waterfords.

“He wants me to go back in on Friday and talk to him about Nick,” I murmur back. There is a strange sense of familiarity about the conversation, Rita and I whispering together in the kitchen, afraid of being heard. It feels like nothing has changed and we are still in Gilead, hiding secrets from Serena.

“What do you think he wants?”

“I don’t know,” I measure out Nichole’s formula carefully, taking time to answer. “He said they won’t need me to testify against Nick, so I don’t know what they want.”

She shoots me a scornful look. “Testify against Nick – I should hope not.”

Rita cares a lot about Nick. They were both always so reserved about it, so casual and sardonic around one another I don’t think I realised how deep it ran until I got out of Gilead. But they had been through a lot together, had both been stationed at the Waterfords long before I got there, and Rita had a son once who would have been about Nick’s age or a little younger if he lived, so I suppose it makes sense.

“Of course, I wouldn’t,” I reassure her, but she still looks sceptical.

“You haven’t been to see him yet, have you?”

I don’t bother to deny it, she has visited Nick in jail two, maybe three times, and she is well aware I haven’t been once.

“How is he?” I ask in an even lower voice, glancing over to where Luke is crowded on the sofa watching TV with Moira, Hannah and Nichole.

“Quiet,” she replies.

I smile, roll my eyes a little. “Well, he’s Nick, what d’you expect?”

She shakes her head. “Different quiet, like he’s given up. He’s talking about pleading guilty to some of the charges, trying to make a deal.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask, feeling slightly panicked. “They don’t have enough evidence to convict him, surely, not unless he admits to anything.”

“He doesn’t want a trial,” she takes the bottle off me, finishing mixing and testing the temperature with practiced ease. “He doesn’t want you and Hannah to get dragged through it.”

“Hannah?” I ask confused. “What’s it got to do with her?”

Rita looks at me darkly. “Apparently they found out about the arranged engagement from the Martha. They know about Eden too, they’re trying to paint him as some kind of paedophile who gets off on child brides. They’ve been asking questions about Hannah – did he touch her, interfere with her?”

I put my hand over my mouth, feeling sick. “That’s crazy. He didn’t even want to sleep with Eden, I made him do it. She was going to report him as a gender traitor.”

Rita sighs. “You need to speak to Tuello and find out what is going on, otherwise Nick is going to do something stupid that lands him in prison for a really long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you missed Part Two of the series (You Don't Own Me), you might need some explanatory notes. In that Nick allied himself with Commander Mackenzie and ended up promised to be married to Hannah when she came of age. Nick and June then used the engagement as a way to get close to Hannah and eventually smuggle her out the country. This is what Rita refers to.


	3. Tuello again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June discusses Nick with Mark Tuello.

On Friday when I am ushered into the comfortable sitting room to meet with Tuello, he must think he is seeing a different person. I am up in his face straight away.

“What the fuck are you doing making accusations about Nick and my daughter?”

“June!” He holds up a placating hand. “Calm down.”

“I won’t calm down! These are our lives you’re messing with. You’re as bad as _they_ are!”

“Sit down,” he gestures to a chair. “Have some coffee. This is what I brought you here to talk about.”

“I don’t want your coffee,” I reply petulantly. “I want an explanation.”

He sighs, gestures to the chair again and I sit down reluctantly.

“June,” he begins. “You should know that Mr Blaine has been made subject to an extradition request by the Republic of Gilead.”

My jaw drops open. “ _What?_ ”

“The Canadian government are taking that extradition request very seriously. You are aware, of course, that there has long been a concern from Gilead about the numbers of their citizens who are granted asylum in Canada. There have been several recent very public attempts on their behalf to get some of these people back – your youngest daughter included. Patience is wearing thin.”

It feels like the ground has fallen away beneath me, I am almost speechless with panic and horror. Everything we went through to get here, and they are going to send Nick back. They _can’t_ send him back. They just can’t.

“If he goes back there he’ll be executed,” I point out in barely more than a whisper. “You’re sending him back to die.”

“Not me,” Tuello corrects. “I’m trying to keep him here. But this is Canada, I’m not part of the Canadian government. They’re balancing up the pros and cons of granting Gilead’s request, and frankly, they’re not seeing many cons. Sending a probable terrorist back there to face justice isn’t going garner them much criticism.”

“Nobody cares,” I realise dully. Maybe that’s why Nick has always seemed so rootless, his allegiances constantly shifting, because no one has ever really cared enough to claim him as their own. Only Gilead who care enough to kill him. 

“Does he know?” I ask.

Tuello nods. “His attorney has advised him to plead guilty to certain high-profile charges in this country in the hope that an easy conviction will be incentive enough to keep him here. I think she’s wrong.”

I nod. Nick had told Rita he was going to plead guilty to terrorism charges. He hadn’t told her the real reason, it would worry her too much.

“What’s all this shit with Hannah about then,” I ask bluntly.

Tuello thinks carefully. “We don’t believe for a second that Mr Blaine is guilty of child sex offenses, in fact Ms Lashford – the Martha you helped escape,” he explains at my confused look, “confirmed that he was never alone with Hannah and never behaved in an inappropriate way.

“But we don’t want him extradited and keeping him here while we investigate allegations of serious crimes against a minor under protection of the Canadian government is a good excuse to buy time.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Time for what?”

Tuello leans forwards towards me. “Mr Blaine was a fairly junior member of the Gilead regime, we don’t care what he did there. But he was also an Eye, and belonged to the Sons of Jacob organisation. He was there from the beginning. He drove around some of the most important Commanders and they trusted him to talk freely in front of him. We think he must be a mine of valuable information. There are likely a large number of people he could implicate in very serious crimes.”

I meet Tuello’s gaze. “Including himself.”

“Mr Blaine would, of course, receive full indemnity from prosecution in return for his co-operation. And we would oppose the extradition request from Gilead.”

I think for a moment, a little confused. “Did you make this offer to Nick?”

Tuello sighs. “He said no.”

“What? Why?” I am uncomprehending. Why would Nick do such a thing? He would rather spend the rest of his life in prison, rather get sent back to Gilead and be killed than answer a few questions? Is he so used to keeping secrets that he can’t break the habit even to save his own life? I am angry and hurt that he would value himself and those who care about him so little.

Then I remember the deal I tried to broker with the Swiss, Nick’s initial reluctance ( _they don’t give a shit about us, you get in bed with a government it's not so easy to get out_ ) and the way they had tried to manipulate him. Mostly likely he is afraid something similar will happen again. Most likely he doesn’t trust Tuello enough to take the deal. I don’t trust him either, but what other choices are there?

“I don’t know why Mr Blaine is refusing to co-operate,” Tuello answers carefully. “Maybe he fails to understand the gravity of the situation. Maybe he’s afraid of reprisals from Gilead if he testifies – they still have a long reach even into Canada.”

“Could he be in danger if he talks?” I ask worriedly.

“He’s in more danger if he goes back there,” Tuello points out. “At least as an asylum seeker in Canada we could offer him protection.” There is a brief silence before Tuello continues in gentler tones.

“But I don’t think it’s his own safety he’s concerned about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think he’s worried about you – and your daughter.”

A fist clenches in my gut. It was supposed to be over once we got out. We were supposed to be safe here.

“Do you think we could be in danger?”

Tuello shrugs. “It’s possible. It’s also possible that Mr Blaine thinks he’s doing the noble thing.”

“What do you mean _noble_? What are you talking about?”

“I think Mr Blaine feels you and your daughter are better off without him in your lives.”

My mouth drops open. “What the fuck?” I know I probably shouldn’t swear in a serious meeting like this, but _seriously, Nick, what the fuck?_

Tuello surveys me with the patient air of someone addressing a small child. “Ms Osbourne, have you had any contact with Mr Blaine since your arrival in Canada?”

I am defensive in my reply. “No, but it’s been…difficult. I’ve been trying to rebuild my marriage, to think about what’s best for my children.”

“Of course,” Tuello agrees soothingly. “And nobody blames you for that. Your husband is a good man, and he’s the only father your youngest daughter has ever known. But if you don’t act now, he’s the only father she is ever likely to know.”

I wrap my arms around myself. “What if I want it that way? What if Nick’s right and it _is_ better for everyone?”

“Then you walk out of this meeting and don’t look back. But I don’t think that is what you want.”

There is silence while I process my thoughts. What do I want? Certainly not Nick back in Gilead. The thought of what they will do to him back there (tortured by Eyes, hanging on the end of a rope, torn apart at a particicution) is enough to bring bile to the back of my throat, to make my breathing tight with panic. But how do I promise him a place in my life here? It was never meant to be like this, it was me and him or me and Luke. The fantasies of running away together, of being a family, they were never more than impossible dreams. They were a way of getting through the days, never meant to be real. Luke is real. He is Hannah’s father, he is Nichole’s father by everything but blood, he has been loyal and patient and loving. I owe him everything. How can I upset the delicate balance we are struggling to achieve by bringing my lover back into our lives?

How can I not?

I owe Nick everything too. He helped me survive that Hellish place. He got me and Hannah out. He gave me a beautiful daughter. He showed me love and respect, where I thought none could exist. He made me hope again after all my hope had died. Since being back with Luke I have tried to shut him out of my head and my heart, to make the sensible choice, but he is part of me and I can’t just turn and walk away from that.

I wipe tears away from my eyes. They are private tears, no one else should see them. My voice is steady when I speak.

“How does it work? What do you need me to do?”

Tuello nods. “I’ll arrange a visit for you with Mr Blaine tomorrow. Just talk to him, tell him you want him to be a part of your daughter’s life. We’ll take care of the rest.”


	4. Nick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June goes to see Nick in jail.

The next day is Saturday. Luke and Moira are both home from work, it is impossible to hide from them where I am going.

“Why?” Moira hisses when she finds out. “Why would you go anywhere near him?”

“Because they’re going to send him back to Gilead if I don’t do something about it!”

Erin offers to take the girls out for brunch when it becomes clear there is going to be an argument and I try to explain about the extradition order, about the deal Tuello wants to make but Nick won’t take.

“If he wants to go back to Gilead,” Moira snaps. “That’s up to him – it’s where he belongs, anyway.”

“They’ll kill him if he goes back there, you know that!” I point out emotionally.

“June, honey,” Luke tries to be the voice of reason. “I understand why you’re upset, but you don’t need to get involved. Nick has a choice. If he doesn’t want to go back to Gilead he just has to say yes to the deal. It’s not your responsibility to talk him into it.”

“Of course he’s going to take the deal,” Moira says witheringly. “He’s just trying to manipulate you into going to see him. And it’s working!”

“How can you say that about him? You don’t even know him?”

“I know everything I need to know,” Moira looks grim. “Paid up member of the Sons of Jacob since 2013. Suspect in the bombing of an abortion clinic. Present at the storming of the Capitol. Active service for Gilead during the war. Commended for his role in defeating a group of rebels in the Blue Ridge Mountains, resulting in the capture of nearly a hundred women, many of whom were forced into becoming Handmaids. Responsible for the arrest and execution of numerous people during his work as an Eye. Married a _fifteen-_ year-old then had her killed for cheating on him! Promoted to Commander and has since led multiple military incursions into the formerly Free Metropolitan Area of Chicago.”

“Stop!” I hold my hand up. “Shut up! That’s enough.”

Moira glares at me defiantly, as if daring me to contradict anything she has said, which, of course, I can’t because it is all true. Luke is aghast, shaking his head in disbelief. Whatever Moira has found out about Nick, she has kept to herself, because it is obviously all horrifyingly new to Luke.

“You knew this?” he whispers in a broken voice. “You knew all this and you _slept_ with him?”

I shake my head. “It’s not like that. It sounds much worse when you put it all together that way, but he’s not like that. He did what he had to do to survive – ” I look pointedly at Moira, “the same way we all did.”

Luke isn’t listening, or if he is he’s not hearing me. “I thought he was a good guy. I thought he was just a driver.”

I start to lose my patience. I’m tired of justifying myself all the time, trying to explain what it was like in Gilead and why I made the choices I had to make. Sometimes I think it would have been easier for Luke to accept if I had just died there, rather than come back a completely different person.

“Do you think if he was a good guy, just a driver, he could have gotten Hannah and me out of there?” I snap at Luke. “You’re a good guy – how far did you get against Gilead?”

Something in Luke’s face breaks and Moira steps in between us. “Hey, hey,” she says. “Let’s not go there. Let’s calm things down.”

I try not to look at Luke, who has sat down at the table with his head in his hands. I look at the clock on my phone instead.

“I have to go. I’m gonna be late to see Nick.”

“Seriously?” Moira exclaims. “You’re leaving now? Seriously?”

I shoot a single, guilty glance at Luke, then harden my heart. I can only deal with one thing at a time. Talk to Nick first, get him to agree to the deal, then I’ll worry about where it leaves me and Luke.

“I’ll stop at the market on the way home,” I announce before heading out the door. “We’re running low on milk.”

*

Another of Tuello’s chauffeur-driven cars is waiting by the kerb to take me to the jail. Unlike Fred and Serena who have been living in relative luxury in secure rooms at the American Embassy, Nick is being held in Toronto South Detention Centre. As jails go, I suppose it doesn’t look too bad – the entrance is modern, all steel and glass, but behind it lurks a huge, windowless concrete structure, home to hundreds of men, trapped in too small cells. I feel a sense of claustrophobic panic just thinking about it.

My name is evidently on some sort of visitors list and I am buzzed straight through to the rooms they say attorneys use to see their clients. There is a security check and a male guard pats me down for concealed weapons. It is a cursory examination only, over in seconds, but still, the dark uniform, the gun at his hip, the feeling of unwanted hands on my body, it brings with it a rush of flashbacks to Gilead. My pulse rate quickens and my stomach churns with nausea.

Afterwards I am ushered into the visiting room and I am too disorientated to realise for a moment that Nick is already there, sat at a table, his hands cuffed in front of him, his head bowed.

“You’ve got thirty minutes,” the guard says. “Someone will be outside watching,” he gestures to a CCTV camera in the ceiling. “There’s pictures but no sound. Bang on the door if you want to leave sooner.”

I nod in acknowledgement, feeling a little light-headed. The guard leaves and I take a seat at the table opposite Nick.

“Hi,” I say tentatively.

“Hey,” he looks up at me and I notice the left half of his face is covered in black and purple bruises, the eye on that side swollen almost shut.

“Shit, Nick,” I gasp. “What happened to you?”

He shrugs. “Some of the inmates found out I was from Gilead. There was a fight. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” I reach out towards his cuffed hands, conscious of the CCTV camera watching us. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he pulls his hands away, tucking them in closer towards his own body. “How are you? How’s Hannah?”

“She’s good,” I answer the second question. “It’ll take her a little while to adjust, but she’s good. She’s started back at school, I think that’s helping.”

“Good,” he nods. “Good.”

Another silence falls, there is so much I want to say to him, but I hardly know how to find the words. _I miss you. I love you. I’m sorry I chose my husband over you._

“Mark Tuello asked me to come see you,” I say instead.

He drops his gaze back to the tabletop and I curse myself inwardly for my choice of words. _Nice one June, make it look like you don’t even want to be here_.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

He shrugs again. “It’s okay. You’ve been busy, I guess.”

I shake my head, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. “It’s not okay. I should have been here. I owe you so much, Nick.”

His eyes flick up. “You don’t owe me anything. Don’t be here because you feel fucking obligated.”

“I’m not,” I say in a stronger voice. “I’m here because I feel fucking _pissed_ at you.”

He looks up properly now, surprise on his face.

“I am so fucking angry,” I get into my stride, heady with the rush of being honest. How is it he is the only person I don’t have to edit my words in front of? I can just say whatever I am feeling, good or bad, and he will just suck it all up. “I’m angry that you got arrested when I still needed you with me, and I know that’s irrational because it wasn’t your fault, but I’m still fucking pissed at you for all the things you did that made it your fault.”

He blinks in the face of my tirade, but says nothing.

“I’m angry,” I continue, “because you’d rather stay here and rot in jail than get out and try and make a life for yourself. I’m angry because you’d rather go back to Gilead and get killed than be a part of your daughter’s life.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t need me in your life, June. Neither does Nichole.”

“Yes she fucking does,” I fire back at him. “You’re her father. And don’t give me that ‘she has a father already shit’, _you’re_ her father, you’re where she came from. She’s going to grow up wanting to know _you_.”

“She’s better off without me,” he protests, but he sounds less convinced now.

“You know,” I tell him. “I never knew my father growing up. There were guys my mom dated and they were nice to me, but none of them were my real dad. I used to ask about him and all she would say was that he was a nice guy but he was just the sperm. Is that what you want to be Nick, just the sperm? Huh?”

He cracks a tiny half-smile at me here, because I guess it does sound like a kind of crazy question. But he’s the guy I don’t have to control my crazy around and I raise a defiant eyebrow at him, daring him to answer.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” is all he says.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I glare at him. “It’s what I’ve always wanted – you part of our daughter’s life. Part of my life,” I add in a softer tone.

He watches me like he always does at this point, wary, analytical, trying to work out what I mean and what move to make next in the chess game that is our relationship.

“I can’t promise what part,” I qualify. “I haven’t worked that out yet. But you’re my family now, Nick. I want you there, not hanging on a wall somewhere back in Gilead.”

“Okay,” he nods.

I smile. “So I can tell Tuello you’ll take the deal?”

He hesitates one more time then speaks in a voice that’s so low I can barely hear.

“What if I don’t deserve it?”

“What?”

“What if I don’t deserve it?” he is louder now, angrier, more bitter. “There’s so many people back there still suffering, still living shitty lives in Hell because of things I helped to do. And I get to just walk away from it, start a shiny new life. It’s not fair.”

“Of course it’s not fucking fair. Nothing about this is fair. But you going back won’t make anything better. You go back now and you were only ever one of them. You stay here and maybe you get a chance to change things.”

I take a deep shuddering breath, confronting a truth that I have been trying hard to deny. “And you can’t walk away from it. It’ll follow you every day of your life for as long as you live. _Gilead is inside you_ ,” I quote Aunt Lydia. “That’s why I need you, because it’s inside me too.

“Don’t give up on me, Nick.” I hold my hands out to him again, and this time he meets them with his own, twisting our fingers together.

“Okay,” he says. “Call Tuello.”


	5. Moira

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter in which June and Moira discuss Nick.

When I get home Moira is sat on the steps of the apartment block smoking a cigarette. She looks up when I arrive.

“You forgot the milk.”

I look down at my empty hands and shrug. “I thought you quit those.”

“I did. It just seemed like a good time to start again.”

I sit down next to her and she offers me the cigarette. I take a drag and pass it back. I am still mad at her, but she is my best friend and she deserves a chance to explain herself.

“Did you see Nick?”

“Yep.” I don’t elaborate. I have no intention of making it easy for her.

“What happened?”

“I talked to him. He’s going to take the deal.”

She snorts. “Of course he is.”

I scowl. “He’s going to be a part of Nichole’s life, and you need to dial down the attitude or _you_ won’t be.”

Moira shakes her head. “You’re seriously still taken in by all his shit?”

“You don’t know him,” I tell her again. “You read his file at the refugee centre and you think you know everything about him, but you haven’t got a fucking clue.”

“So tell me,” she challenges. “Tell me what happened there. Talk to me – you’ve hardly said three fucking words since you’ve been back.”

I flinch. I want to tell her, but somehow the words get stuck on the way out. Talking about things makes them seem realer, more immediate, less like some awful dream I can just push down inside me and forget. And worst of all, I can’t take the horror in people’s faces when I recount details of life in Gilead. Things that seemed normal there have so much power to shock and hurt here. _Ordinary is just what you get used to_.

Instead of lowering my defences and opening up, I counter-attack.

“You never asked me anything! Instead you just sneak around at work to find stuff out. Those files are supposed to be confidential – you had no business looking at Nick’s!”

“I was only trying to help,” Moira shoots back. “You know when I heard that they’d arrested the guy who got you and Hannah out I thought ‘What the fuck is this shit?’. I thought this guy is a hero, he saved my friend’s life and he gets thrown in jail for it. I thought if I found out what he was being accused of I could go to the authorities and tell them how wrong they were.”

She looks at me sadly. “The more I read the more I realised that was never going to happen. Then I understood why you weren’t doing anything either. I mean, you weren’t angry Nick had been arrested, you weren’t shouting about it, trying to get him back. I thought at first it was because you were too shellshocked by Gilead or too tied up with seeing Luke again, but it was because you were expecting it, weren’t you?”

I shuffle my feet on the step and sigh, looking away from Moira into the middle distance as I answer. “Yes.”

She waits patiently for me to say more and I continue reluctantly.

“We talked about it. That he would probably get arrested in Canada for the things he had done in Gilead – and Before. But if he’d stayed behind after helping us escape then he would have been killed.”

“So why did he?” Moira asks. “Help you escape?”

I shake my head, trying to think of how I can make her understand. “Because he wanted to do something good, something to try to start to put things right. Because he hated it there as much as I did. Because he loves me.”

Moira looks incredulous. “You believe that?”

I nod, tears burning the back of my eyes. “Yes.”

She is thoughtful for a second. “Do you love him?”

The tears fall. “Honestly? I don’t know. Sometimes, yes, so much. Other times I wonder if I even know anything about him.”

“And what about Luke?”

“I know him, I love him. He’s Hannah’s father. He’s done so much for me and for Nichole…I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Shit,” Moira shakes her head. “This is so fucked up.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Gilead fucked us all up.”

Moira reaches for her cigarettes, half slides out another before changing her mind and cramming the packet back into her pocket.

“Listen,” she says. “If you want Nick in Nichole’s life then I’ll give him a chance. But I think you should think carefully about letting him back into _your_ life. Someone’s going to get hurt in this arrangement, and I don’t want it to be you or Luke.”

“Okay,” I agree, leaning my head onto her shoulder. But I can’t help thinking about seeing Nick in prison, and the feeling of his hands in mine.


	6. Free America and Snickerdoodles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June sneaks out of a meeting at her apartment to go visiting.

For the next few weeks nothing much happens. Tuello confirms he is working with Nick and that the extradition to Gilead is unlikely to happen. At some point Nick gets moved to the comfortable rooms at the American Embassy, but I am not invited back there to see him. Luke and I are wary around one another. I think he wants to talk about Nick, but also that Moira has got there first and suggested he lets me broach the topic in my own time. I don’t say anything.

One evening Luke and Moira are holding a meeting of their Free America group. Hannah is having a sleepover at her friend Rebecca’s house (let her do normal kid things, her therapist had encouraged us last week, she feels different enough already without overanxious parents putting restrictions on her life) and Nichole is asleep already. I have no excuse not to sit in the living room with the others, except I hate it.

Firstly, there’s the social anxiety. I seem to have forgotten how to behave in normal social situations, the Gilead responses have just become so ingrained. Sometimes I catch myself saying ‘Blessed Day’ to the supermarket checkout lady. I walk with my head bowed. I find it hard to make eye contact. I feel awkward sitting on a sofa, more comfortable standing or kneeling. Forget making small talk with strangers. I don’t seem to be able to speak unless I am spoken to first, then I have nothing to say. I actually used ‘We’ve been sent good weather’ once when Moira introduced me to one of her work colleagues. Luckily, she was used to dealing with refugees, so she understood.

Secondly, the group seems to think of me as some kind of hero. They all know about the plane full of children I got out of Gilead, which has gained legendary status as one of the greatest acts of rebellion against Gilead to have happened so far. Never mind the fact that half the kids had no relatives in Canada and ended up being returned to their Gilead parents. Never mind the numbers of Marthas who were executed for their part in it. Never mind the consequent tightening of the border making it more difficult for others to get out, or the threat of military action against Canada as retaliation, which resulted in a softening of their stance against other issues. It was a big ‘fuck you’ to Gilead and I was responsible for it, so I was a superstar. Instant celebrity refugee status.

They all want to talk to me, ask me questions like ‘How did you get out?’, ‘How did you get Hannah out?’, ‘How did you rescue the kids?’ and ‘What do you think the resistance movement should do next?’. It makes me cringe. If I can’t explain these things when my family ask, how am I supposed to talk about them to complete strangers?

Luke is disappointed, I can tell. These people are his friends, his support network over the five years I was missing in Gilead. He wants to show me off to them. _This is my wife - isn’t she brave, isn’t she clever? Doesn’t she kick ass? You said she’d never do it, but she did, she beat the fuckers!_

It doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like a victory. I escaped, but there is nothing celebratory about it. I didn’t fight my way out through locked gates triumphant. They wore me down until I was a sliver of the person I used to be, then I slipped out like a shadow under the back door. And all those brave, clever, kick ass parts of me got left behind.

I hear Nichole stirring and I am quick to use it as an excuse to slip out of the room. She is awake in her cot, staring up at me with dark, serious eyes. She quiets immediately on seeing me, doesn’t say anything, simply lifts her arms to be picked up. I take this as encouraging progress. She comes to me readily now, seems as happy with me as with Moira, Luke or Erin.

“Hey Baby Girl,” I whisper, picking her up and cuddling her close to me. She smells of milk and the lavender bedtime bubbles she had in her bath this evening. I love these moments when it is just me and her together. They remind me of what all the suffering and struggling was for.

Of course, she spoils it slightly by pulling on my hair and then trying to stick her fingers in my ear.

“Ow,” I complain and she giggles cheekily. There is no way she is going back to sleep. As far as I see it I have two choices: I can hide out in here playing with her, or I can take her out into the main room where she will immediately be pounced upon by half a dozen people desperate to pet the famous Baby Nichole, saved from the clutches of Gilead. The first option is by far the most preferable, but I know that Luke will be in here soon, checking up on us. He does that a lot, as if he is afraid I will disappear from him again, or worse still, have some kind of psychotic breakdown and hurt Nichole if not constantly supervised around her.

I decide to take door number three. I find a chunky woollen cardigan for Nichole and pull it on top of her sleepsuit. Then I gather her in my arms and breeze through the living room with her, making eye contact with as few people as possible.

“She’s a bit unsettled so I’m going to take her out for a walk in her stroller,” I announce to no one in particular. I see Luke stand and move towards me, but Moira puts a restraining hand on his arm and he sits back down again, scowling into his drink.

Once I am out of the apartment, I feel I can breathe again. On a normal day there are too many people in there, but when we have company over the crowd feels unbearable. Luke has been talking about us getting a place of our own, him and me and the girls, but money is tight and having Moira and Erin there as extra childcare has been invaluable. They are also neutral parties, cushioning insulation between me and Luke. I am not sure I am ready to be quite so alone with him yet, the weight of expectation that we will somehow just click back together again is too great.

We are moving into Autumn now, but the weather hasn’t yet turned and it is a pleasant evening. I walk in no particular direction, soaking in the sights and sounds of the city. Sometimes the noise and the bustle overwhelm me, used as I am to quiet order of Gilead, but on nights like this when I can just stand back and observe I find a surreal kind of beauty to it. The banality of a couple holding hands in the street, a group of friends laughing, the sound of music spilling from an open window, the smells of fried food from a street vendor, has all attained a kind of magical wonder about it. Maybe everyone should spend a part of their life with all their freedoms ripped away from them, it would make people value all the little things they have now a lot more.

Looking at the street signs I realise I have wondered close to Rita’s neighbourhood. Nichole is asleep now in the stroller, but it is unlikely that the meeting at home will have finished yet, so I decide to drop in for a visit with Rita. When she opens her door to my knock her expression is one of wary surprise.

“Who told you?” she asks and I recoil slightly at the challenge.

“Told me what?”

She moves out of my way so I can see into the apartment. Nick is standing at the door to the guest bedroom, a towel looped over his arm. He looks better than when I last saw him, the bruises on his face almost healed.

“Hey,” he says, his expression as carefully neutral as ever.

“You’re here,” I gasp. “I didn’t know. I was nearby, just came to see Rita.”

“Got released this afternoon. Rita’s letting me stay till I find a place of my own.”

“Good,” I manage. “That’s good.” I realise I am still standing in the doorway staring at him like an idiot. I move further into the room, awkwardly maneuvering the stroller in behind me.

“I have Nichole with me,” I explain redundantly and I see Nick swallow hard. His mask slips and his eyes are suddenly full of naked longing.

“Can I see her?” he asks.

“Of course,” I nod. I turn the stroller to face into the room and he walks quickly towards us, dumping the towel he is holding on the couch as he passes.

“Why don’t I make us all some coffee?” Rita offers, disappearing discreetly into the kitchen area.

Nick drops to his knees beside Nichole and stares at her in awe. “She’s so beautiful.”

“She looks like you,” I tell him and he shakes his head.

“Nah, she’s definitely all you.”

“Do you want to hold her?”

He looks stricken. “I don’t know. Will she be okay with that?”

“Let’s find out.” I bend to unstrap Nichole from her stroller and find my face dangerously close to Nick’s. He rocks back on his heels to give me space, but not before I have breathed in the scent of him. He smells like he always did – cigarettes and soap.

Nichole stirs slightly as I lift her out of the stroller, but doesn’t wake. She is a dead weight on my shoulder and I am happy to hand her over to Nick, who handles her carefully, like the most precious treasure. Fast asleep she doesn’t recognise it is an unfamiliar set of arms holding her and she nestles deeper into his neck. He looks utterly entranced.

“She’s gonna drool on you,” I warn him.

He smiles at this, like he can’t imagine anything more incredible than the prospect of being drooled on by a sleeping toddler. I smile goofily back at him, unable to imagine anything more incredible either. I am stood alongside him, my arm almost touching his. I remember the last time we stood like this, the first time he held his newborn baby daughter in his arms. I remember leaning into him, whispering _I love you_. I wonder if he is remembering the same thing.

“Come and sit down with her before your arms drop off,” Rita grumbles, reappearing with the coffee.

We settle ourselves on the sofa, Nick lowering himself down gently, Nichole still cuddled close to his chest.

“Ooh, snickerdoodles!” I snag a cookie from the coffee tray as I sit down. “Yum.”

Rita rolls her eyes, but looks pleased.

“She must be pleased to have you here,” I tell Nick, “if she baked for you.”

“Nah,” he teases back. “If she was really pleased she would have made rock cookies, she knows they’re my favourite.”

“Just because they’re from Michigan,” Rita scowls at him, “doesn’t make them any good.”

I laugh, feeling lighter inside than I have done for months. I feel safe in this room, part of a family again. It is like changing from clothes that don’t quite fit anymore into your comfiest, cosiest pair of jeans. They may not look the smartest from the outside, but they feel right.

Rita and I chat for a while. Nick doesn’t say much, just sits and listens, still holding tight to Nichole. At one point his eyes close and if I didn’t know him better I’d think he’d drifted off to sleep. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him look this relaxed or peaceful before.

Eventually, when my coffee is done and Nick’s has long gone cold, I check my watch and realise it is long past the time I should be getting home.

“Shit, I have to go,” I swear. “Help me get her back in her stroller.”

When Nick moves with Nichole she wakes in his arms and looks up at him with sleepy eyes.

“Hey, Holly,” he says softly, before glancing at me guilty. “Sorry, I know that’s not her name.”

I move to take her off him and she protests slightly, clinging onto Nick’s shirt front with her chubby little hands as I peel her away from him.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Sometimes I think of her as Holly too.” I swing her around, dropping her down into the stroller and leaning down to fasten the straps. “I wish I’d never said to call her Nichole, I only did it as a thank you to Serena for letting her go.” I sigh. “Bitch screwed me over on that one.”

“You can still change it,” Rita suggests, moving to clear the coffee things.

I shake my head. “It’s too late now.”

Rita raises an eyebrow, looking between me and Nick. “Never too late for anything is what I say.”


	7. Swings and Sand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June and Nick take Nichole to the park.

When I get home Luke is frantic.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he explodes as soon as I walk through the door.

“I told you I was going out for a walk with Nichole.”

“That was three hours ago,” he yells. “I’ve left like fifty messages on your mobile! I almost called the fucking police!”

I reach my hand in my jacket pocket, it is empty. “I went to Rita’s,” I explain. “I must have forgotten to take my phone. Sorry.”

Luke runs his hand over his face repeatedly, the gesture he makes when he is trying to control his temper.

“You can’t do that, June,” he says. “You can’t just wonder off at night with no purse and no phone – anything could have happened!”

I fix him with an impatient look. “You mean anything like being kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery? Anything like that?”

To Luke’s credit he doesn’t rise to the bait, he simply shakes his head in frustration. “You know what I mean, June. I worry about you – and Nichole, and Hannah. I worry about losing you again.”

He looks truly terrible, a man on the edge of breaking point and I soften towards him.

“You’re right, I’m sorry, I should have called. I should have taken my phone with me.”

I don’t bother to explain why I didn’t, we both know why. No phones in Gilead. No purses, no money, no danger lurking on streets guarded by ever present men with machine guns. Freedom to or freedom from – it’s always one or the other.

“It’s okay,” Luke nods, coming towards me and embracing me. I stand stiffly in his arms. “Just – can you not do it again?”

“Okay,” I agree, slipping away from him to free Nichole from her stroller.

“What took you so long, anyway?” he asks, following me as I carry Nichole to the bedroom.

I hesitate, then decide to take the plunge. He’s already pissed at me, right? May as well do a little more damage.

“Nick was there.”

Luke freezes in the bedroom doorway. “Nick.”

“I wasn’t expecting to see him,” I try to explain. “He was just released today, he’s staying with Rita for a while.”

A muscle works in Luke’s jaw. “And you let him see Nichole?”

“He’s her father, Luke.”

“I thought we agreed we’d work up a visitation schedule. That a social worker was gonna supervise.”

“It wasn’t planned,” I look away from him as I settle Nichole in her cot. “It just sort of happened.”

I feel his eyes burning into my back. “Is it going to happen again?”

I can’t bring myself to look back at him when I answer. “Next Tuesday afternoon. I’m going to pick Nichole up early from daycare and we’ll take her to play in the park.”

“I want to be there.”

I turn to face him now. “You’re supposed to be at work that day.”

“I’ll swap the shift,” he looks determined. “I’m not leaving my wife and daughter alone with a violent rapist.”

I feel my temper rise. “That’s not what he is and you know it.”

“That’s what his file says he is,” Luke shoots back. “And I don’t care what deals he made to get out of going to prison for it.”

“He saved my life and he saved Hannah from a future in that Hellhole! We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him!”

“He’s a terrorist!”

I shake my head. “He made some bad choices.”

Luke scoffs. “A bad choice is ketchup on your hotdog not mustard. A bad choice is more than one margarita on an empty stomach. The man helped to overthrow a government! He spent years working for a regime that abuses women! You can’t just write that off as a bad choice!”

Luke is yelling now and Nichole has woken up crying. I scoop her up and hold her close to my chest, rocking her gently.

“Please don’t to this, Luke,” I tell him, more softly now, but with a dangerous edge of warning to my voice. “If you can’t trust my judgement on this then we’re not going to survive.”

He stares at me angrily for a beat. “Then maybe we don’t survive,” he says eventually, before turning and storming out of the room. 

*

The next day Luke is calmer. He’s sorry, he’d had a few drinks, he says. _Of course I trust you_ , he says. In the end we agree Erin will come with me on Tuesday. It is a compromise – I won’t be alone with Nick, but neither am I taking someone likely to be hostile or aggressive towards him. I don’t regret the decision – I’m not sure I’d trust _myself_ alone with Nick right now.

He is already at the playpark when we arrive with Nichole. He looks so out of place sat by himself on the bench opposite the swings that I can’t help but smile. He has obviously tried to dress less Gilead and more casual in a cream linen shirt and blue jeans, but he can’t hide the tension in his shoulders, the vigilant way his eyes constantly scan the surroundings or the closed off mask his features settle into. The playpark is quiet – not many children around nowadays – but there are two other women there supervising a little boy. They cast Nick wary glances, probably not sure whether to report him to the cops for suspicious behaviour or go over there and hit on him.

I march straight over, Erin and Nichole in tow.

“Hey,” he stands up to greet me, and there is an awkward moment when friends would probably have hugged or kissed on the cheek, but we do neither. Then Erin is there and introductions need to be made, and Nichole is fighting to get out of her stroller because she can’t wait to start playing.

“Ings! Ings!” she is shouting.

“She wants to go on the swings,” I explain apologetically, as she wriggles to get away from me. “Do you want to push her?”

Nick looks surprised, but pleased. “Sure.”

I let Nichole drag me towards the baby swings and Nick follows behind us.

“Okay Sweetie,” I tell her. “This is Nick, he’s gonna push you on the swings today.”

“Ings! Ings!” she shouts again, not really bothered by who is going to facilitate her swinging, as long as it gets done.

“Pick her up,” I instruct Nick. “Under the arms, and her legs go through these bits.”

I help him get her settled in the swing then stand back as he starts to push her gently.

“You can push harder than that,” I tell him. “She likes to go really high.”

“Fearless, huh?” he raises an eyebrow at me, speaking in an undertone. “I wonder where she gets that from?”

Nick has way more patience than me pushing the swing, and we stand there for a good quarter hour before Nichole is bored. Then we do the slide and the see-saw before ending up at the sandbox. Nick takes off his socks and shoes and lets Nichole bury his feet, which she does with great enthusiasm. I am almost jealous of how comfortable she is with him already. It took weeks for her to get used to me. Maybe the therapist was right and I was trying too hard. For a while I wanted to touch her all the time, just to reassure myself she was really there. Nick, on the other hand, holds back, lets her take the lead and come to him. It’s a good tactic. Certainly it worked on me.

He notices me watching him, looks up, gets that familiar expression on his face like he wants to smile but can’t quite remember how.

“She’s not eating it,” he says. “The sand.”

I nod, remembering, and send him my own almost smile back – the one where I purse my lips and say everything with my eyes.

“Beach sand is different.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s tastier – more salt.”

He snorts a short laugh and I grin widely at him. There is a long moment where we hold each other’s gaze then a shadow falls across my face. I look up to see Erin looking down at me. The sun is behind her and I can’t see the expression on her face clearly.

“It’s nearly three o’clock,” she says. “Time to pick up Hannah.”

Nichole protests loudly when I try to extricate her from the sand. Her crying only gets louder as Erin and I together wrestle her into the stroller and fasten her into the safety harness.

“No, no, no, no, nooo!”

Nick, less familiar with the mood swings of a toddler, looks pained. He reaches for the bag he has brought with him.

“I got her a gift – can I?” he asks.

“Sure,” I tell him.

“Good luck,” Erin adds.

From his bag he pulls out a book with a picture of a dog on the front.

“Hey Holly,” he says softly, kneeling down next to her. “Look at the doggy.”

“No!” she shouts back, batting the book away.

He persists, holding the book just out of her reach. “ _That’s not my puppy_ ,” he reads. “ _Its coat is too hairy_. Do you want to stroke the puppy, Holly?” He brushes the shaggy coat of the dog on the front of the book with one finger.

Holly _(Nichole)_ reaches out a grabby toddler hand for the book, and Nick catches her fist gently, moving her fingers to stroke the puppy’s fur. After that success they go through the rest of the book, ending on ‘That’s my puppy, his nose is so squashy’, at which point Nick reaches into his bag again and pulls out an almost exact copy of the dog on the last page, brown and white with a black squishy nose.

“Hey, that’s your puppy!” he flourishes the cuddly toy at her and she snatches it off him.

“Oof, oof,” she is shouting now, her impression of a dog barking.

Nick stands up, looking pleased. “She’s gonna be a reader.”

“Thank you,” I tell him.

“June,” Erin interrupts, looking pointedly at her watch.

“We have to go,” I say apologetically. “I’ll call you about next time.”

“Sure,” he shrugs, and we hurry away, leaving him standing alone in a place meant for families.

*

On the way to pick up Hannah I grill Erin.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“ _Nick._ ”

“Oh,” she shrugs. “He’s hot, I can see why you slept with him.”

I don’t know Erin well enough to tell whether she is making a joke or not. If she is I don’t find it funny.

“Is that what you’re going to tell Luke?”

“What makes you think I’m going to tell Luke anything?”

“Of course you’re going to tell Luke something,” I say impatiently. “He’s going to ask what happened today. He’s gonna ask whether Nick’s a decent guy or not.”

Erin sighs. “Well I can tell him what happened, but I can’t say if Nick’s a decent guy.”

“Why not? He was great with Holly today.”

“You mean with Nichole,” Erin corrects and I wave it away.

“Nichole, right.”

Erin shakes her head slightly. “He played with his kid for a while. He didn’t try to rape or murder anyone while we were there. That doesn’t mean I can make a judgement on the kind of guy he is.”

“But – ” I protest and Erin interrupts me. I don’t think I have ever heard her talk this much in all the time since I met her.

“You know who I _do_ know is a decent guy? Luke. Luke is a decent guy. He’s a great guy.”

“I know that.”

“Do you know he saved my life? Not in a flashy action hero, midnight escape from Gilead kind of way. But he still saved it the same. I was broken. I didn’t think I could carry on, I didn’t fucking talk for six months. But Luke was just there for me – no questions, no judgements, just there. He put me back together again. Don’t throw someone like that away, June.”

I shake my head. “I don’t intend – I’m not going to – ”

Somehow I can’t finish the sentence. We are at Hannah’s school now anyway. Erin throws me a sad look and falls silent. She has said what she needs to say and we won’t talk about this again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's still reading. Sorry about the lack of realism in this chapter. No actual toddler would ever be distracted from a tantrum by a book. What was I thinking? *g*


	8. Luke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke confronts June about their relationship.

We fall into a routine. On Tuesdays Nick meets us at the playpark with Erin. Saturdays we meet at Rita’s house and stay for dinner. Things start to feel more stable. Luke and I don’t argue again, but we are polite and careful around one another, as if each of us is afraid of upsetting the delicate accord we have achieved. Nick gets a job, ironically as a driver for the American Embassy. Mark Tuello offers it to him once they have finished their intelligence gathering interviews. I am surprised at first.

“I think he wants me to keep my ears open,” Nick explains. “Pass on any information I hear driving people around.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t have much of a choice. Aren’t many job options for someone with ‘Gilead Commander’ at the top of his resume.”

“At least we know he’s qualified for it,” Rita chips in dryly, as she places a dish of potatoes on the table.

Nick has stayed with Rita, despite both their insistences that it was a temporary arrangement. They seem comfortable with one another and I am comfortable too when I visit. Rita dotes on Holly – we have slipped into the habit of calling her that when she is here – and Nick is turning into the great father I always knew he could be. We do ordinary things together, watch TV, play with Holly’s toys, go for walks where we jump in piles of Autumn leaves. I get a glimpse of what we could be if we weren’t what we are. It feels, for those precious few hours every week, like we’re a family.

It would be perfect. If it weren’t for the fact I have another family already.

Nick closes off whenever Holly is not there. If she naps at Rita’s then he finds an excuse to fix a leaky faucet or pick up something from the market, any reason for us not to be alone together. I know he is doing it out of consideration for Luke, but it still smarts. Hannah hates Saturdays now. She gets upset with me for leaving and angry with me when I come back home. I feel guilty for having such a good time without her. Luke is kind, attentive, but he still treats me more like a wounded animal than a wife.

It takes time, I guess. I wish I could fast forward to the ending, skip the hard bits. But then I’d have to know what I want the ending to be. Happily ever after isn’t gonna happen. Just something easier then, something better than this. Problem is, better never means better for everyone.

One Tuesday snow swirls against the windows as our usual time to go to the park approaches. There is a bitter wind blowing and Holly already has a runny nose, I don’t want to take the chance the winter weather will make her any worse. We agree with Nick that he will come to the apartment instead, and he brings lunch with him, which we sit on the floor together and eat, like a picnic.

We are laughing together at the mess Holly has made squashing strawberries into her chin when the door opens and Luke walks in.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He is wearing his Autumn jacket, not heavy enough for the sudden change in temperature. He shakes snow out of his hair. He is already pissed off about something.

“It was too cold for the park,” I explain, “so we met here instead.”

“Where's Erin?”

“In the bathroom,” I try to answer calmly, not be irritated by Luke’s cross-examination. “Why are you home early?”

“The car wouldn’t start again,” he replies tetchily. “I had to catch a ride with Pete, he always leaves early on Tuesdays.”

“Again?” I shake my head. “I thought you got it fixed.”

Luke takes his boots and jacket off, steadfastly not looking at Nick. “Piece of shit mechanic made it worse than it was before.”

“If you like,” Nick offers quietly. “I could take a look at it for you. If you like.”

“Don’t go to any trouble,” Luke responds not very graciously.

“It’s no trouble,” Nick shrugs.

“He’s good with cars,” I point out. “He’s a – ”

“He’s a driver, yeah, I know,” Luke interrupts, his eyes hard. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Whatever,” Nick stands up. “I should go.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Luke agrees.

Once Nick has left I turn on Luke.

“What’s your problem? He was just trying to help.”

Luke heads towards the kitchen, opens the fridge, takes out a beer.

“I don’t need your fucking boyfriend fixing my car.”

I clear plates from the counter, dumping them into the sink with a clatter. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Luke runs a hand over his face, continues talking as if he doesn’t hear me. “Like I don’t owe him enough already, I have to start adding more stuff to the list.”

“He was just trying to save you some trouble.”

Luke fixes me with an icy stare. “Yeah, is there anything else he’s saving me the trouble of doing?”

I recoil as if he has slapped me. I’m pretty sure this is an allusion to the fact we haven’t slept together since I got out of Gilead. It just hasn’t felt right yet, not to mention the fact we are sharing a bedroom with two children. I thought he was being patient about it, I thought he was being understanding. Well, fuck him.

“Are you fucking jealous?” I hiss angrily. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Should I be?”

“Do you have any idea how pathetic you sound? _You’re_ jealous of _Nick_? I see him maybe five hours a week, only ever in the company of a toddler and a _chaperone_. How do you think he feels about you? You get to see me every day, to be my husband, to raise his daughter. I chose _you_ Luke. I chose you and you’re the jealous one?”

He takes a swig of his beer, puts the bottle down, paces a few steps across the kitchen and back before speaking.

“Why?” he says eventually, his voice sounding tired and broken.

“What?”

“Why did you choose me? You’re not happy, June. We don’t talk anymore. You don’t touch me – you barely even look at me. It’s like you’re here, but you’re not here. Then I walk in and you’re laughing. Do you know how desperate I’ve been to see you laugh again? And I walk in and you’re doing it with _him_.”

For a second I don’t know what to say, because he is right. I am a ghost in this house. I go through the motions, say what I think that I should, do what is expected of me. I am free, but I don’t feel free. I feel trapped, forced into playing another role that doesn’t fit with who I am anymore. Only with Nick, who doesn’t ask, doesn’t expect, do I feel that I can be myself.

“Because of Hannah,” I reply eventually in a low voice. “I wanted to be a family again for Hannah.”

Luke shakes his head, he seems on the verge of tears. I turn to check on Holly and notice that at some point during our argument Erin has snuck in and taken her away into the bedroom. It feels very lonely just me and Luke.

“What if that’s not enough?” he asks.

I shake my head in an echo of him. “I don’t know. I want it to be like it was before, but it’s just not.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, the tears falling.

“No,” I move towards him, crying myself. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do any of this. It just…happened. None of it is your fault.”

“Shit happens, huh?” he asks with a bitter laugh.

“Yeah,” I nod. “Shit happens.”

We are standing very close now and he pulls me into his body, resting his chin on the top of my head. I feel his chest shaking with sobs.

“Hey,” I whisper, “hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

“I don’t want it to be over, June,” he admits, his voice heavy and thick. “I waited so long for you. I don’t want our marriage to be over.”

I close my eyes, feeling the security of his arms around me, the familiar weight of his chin on my head, the tickle of his beard. Can it be we still fit?

“I don’t want that either,” I whisper into his shirt.

He pulls back, traces my cheek with his fingers, feels the wetness of my tears there. I look up into his eyes, see the pain and the need and the love there.

He kisses me.


	9. Just do it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June tries to make her marriage with Luke work.

We agree one last chance, one final go at making it work. Maybe it’s too late already, but at least this way we’ll know that we tried. We can tell Hannah we did everything we could to keep her parents together.

There is a therapist, a different one from the trauma counseller we have been seeing with Hannah. This one is a marriage specialist. He’s worked with a few couples post-Gilead, he explains, but he won’t be drawn on his success rates. He has rules.

No sharing a room with the kids – we must have space to work on our relationship.

No sex – we mustn’t put pressure on ourselves to be intimate too soon.

No looking back – the past is past and we need to move forward now.

No Nick – this has to be about just Luke and me.

We find our own place. It is smaller, but closer to Hannah’s school. I explain to Nick I can’t see him while I work on my relationship with Luke, but he can still spend time with Holly. He gives me his ‘Gilead face’ in response, carefully shuttered to give away no emotional reaction. Probably I should be grateful he is so understanding, that he doesn’t abuse Luke for being a jealous ass. Mostly I am pissed off at how easily he assumes indifference.

Saturdays start being the day Luke, Hannah and I spend together, while Holly overnights with Rita and Nick. It is a little awkward at first. The lost gap between days out taken as a family Before and days now gapes widely. I can’t help thinking of what we used to do then, the places we would go, the zoo, soft play, the aquarium, the beach. How easy it was then, how thoughtlessly I would just take Hannah or Luke’s hand as we walked. Now I am not sure what Hannah would like to do, the places she would like to see. I am afraid to take Hannah’s hand in case she finds it too intrusive or overprotective. I’m afraid Luke will take my hand and _I_ will find it too intrusive.

A few Saturdays in, the therapist’s advice is helping. _Don’t look back._ We find new things to do as a family – see a movie, ice skate, take Hannah to the mall to pick out clothes. It becomes fun. When we all hold hands to keep our balance on the skates, it feels natural again. Being alone with Luke in an apartment, we have to talk more to each other. Deep revelations are off limits, but we at least get better at having a conversation with one another. We can discuss Luke’s day at work, the latest cute thing Nichole did, the latest outrageous thing Moira said, the colour Hannah picked for her new bedroom.

A knot starts to ease in my chest. The fear I had been living with – that Luke would see all the ways I have changed since Gilead and hate me because of them – gradually dissipates. We take it slowly, get to know each other again. I feel like I’m getting my best friend back.

But that’s the problem. Luke feels like a friend. There’s something missing that used to be there before, something I’m afraid we’ll never recapture. Luke with his man-brain would probably distill it down to sex. For me it’s more complicated than that.

There’s no spark, no desire, no need, no physical or emotional intimacy. I’m getting better at talking to Luke, but the conversations are superficial, things you’d chat about over coffee. I still don’t feel I could share myself with him. I can’t share my thoughts or my emotions and I don’t want to share my physical self either. Luke, though, seems not to understand this. As things get better between us he edges physically closer. It’s as if his role as my husband has bought him a physical claim to my body as an object he can touch whenever he feels like it. I don’t blame him for thinking that, because that’s the way it used to be.

Before, I would be cooking at the stove and he’d come from behind me, sneak his arms around my waist and kiss my neck. In a crowded elevator he’d press close and put his hand casually on my ass, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face that he could. After sex he’d fall asleep curled around me, our legs tangled, one of his hands slid under my top, cupping my breast. And I used to revel in it, take joy from the experience of being so desired and desiring in return. It hadn’t been like that with his first wife, and that was what made us different, special, meant to be. It wasn’t wrong to take him from her, because what we had was so much more.

Now that something is gone, broken inside me. His hand feels heavy on my waist. I lie in bed at night stiffly, hoping he will keep to his side and not edge over towards mine. When he moves to touch my hair, my arm, my leg, to kiss me chastely hello or goodbye, I have to try hard not to flinch. He is by no means pushy or grabby, it’s just the embrace we shared in the kitchen, the commitment we made to work on our marriage, it seems to have encouraged him to move subtly closer, to reconnect with our bodies as well as the rest of ourselves.

It’ll take time, everyone tells me. This is what I tell myself. But Luke has been so patient already, all those faithful years while I was in Gilead fucking Nick, and I’m afraid he won’t wait much longer. This is the crux of the issue, I think. Nick. Luke understands, of course, that I was raped, repeatedly, by different men, that because of this sex for me has become something associated with trauma and violation, not pleasure. But what he doesn’t understand is if sex in general is a problem, then why was sex with Nick okay? And if sex with Nick is still something I could have and enjoy, then why not sex with him, Luke?

How do I answer that question without crushing my husband’s feelings? How can I explain that it is different because it just is? That sex with Nick was always about me and what I wanted and needed. Sometimes it was about rebellion, the act of doing what was forbidden as a fuck you to Gilead itself. Sometimes it was about control, taking back charge of my body and my desires, being able to domineer instead of just lie back and submit. Sometimes it was about being able to forget, just for a short time, all the other shit that was happening. Sometimes it was about loneliness, comfort, affection, finding love in a world otherwise empty of human connection.

Luke wants sex with _him_ to be about me, to be what I need and desire. How can I explain to him that it’s just not anymore?

I approach it instead like an unpleasant task you just have to get out of the way, like having a pelvic exam or cleaning out the refrigerator. Maybe I have built it up in my head to be bigger than it really is. Maybe the idea of it is worse than the reality. Maybe I just need to get the first time over and done with and after that it will get easier. I feel the pressure building to do it every day. The look in Luke’s eyes gets hungrier, his touches get bolder, the chaste kisses start to linger. I mention it to Moira.

“I was scared too, the first time,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure I could ever enjoy it again. But then I realised that’s letting the bastards win. That’s what they want – to ruin sex for women, to make it about getting themselves off or getting you pregnant. You’ve got to just do it, take it back for yourself.”

_Just do it_. The mantra runs in my head. _Just get it over with, after all it’s nothing I haven’t done before_.

I point out the therapist said no sex. Moira scoffs at this.

“They all say that. It makes the sex more exciting, like you’re breaking the rules to have it. Then you go to him after and say ‘Oops, sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves’, and he’ll say ‘Well, that’s because I’m such an awesome therapist bringing you back together,’ and everyone’s happy.”

I still hesitate. “What if we do it and it’s bad or I freak out?”

“Well then the therapist says ‘I told you so’,” Moira jokes, but then she sees my serious expression and turns reassuring.

“Don’t worry, June, it’s not gonna be bad. It’s Luke – he loves you and you love him. It’s just one last step towards fixing things between you. Just keep your shit together and it’ll all be fine.”

“Keep my shit together,” I repeat and she hugs me.


	10. Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A treat for June's birthday doesn't go as planned.

A week or so later it is my birthday. Luke makes pancakes for me and the girls before he heads to work. Beside my plate is an envelope, inside is a card with a gift certificate.

“ _Pamper Day_ ,” I read from the card the name of an expensive Toronto hotel spa. “ _A day of luxury relaxation and beauty treatments_. Luke, we can’t afford this, it must have cost a fortune.”

“Moira and Erin chipped in,” Luke tells me cheerfully. “Anyway, you deserve it. I know how much you love a spa day. And tonight Moira is going to take the girls, and I’m gonna cook dinner, so you can have a whole night off.”

“Great,” I try to smile back, but my stomach clenches nervously. Obviously Luke has big plans for a romantic evening. I want to be excited about the prospect of us reconnecting, but I can only seem to manage to feel anxiety and dread.

After I drop the girls to school and day care, I take a cab to the hotel. The receptionist directs me down into the basement to the spa. It is everything I would have expected it to be, high class and tranquil, all soft light and clean lines, the soothing sound of running water coming from a small fountain trickling over fake rocks in the corner of the foyer. It is the kind of place my mother used to hate ( _pretentious, self-indulgent, pointless waste of time_ ), but I secretly loved coming to. I enjoyed the fuss they made over you, the selfishness of just lying still while people did things to me, and the way I felt more special, more beautiful afterwards for having been there.

Now I feel vaguely uncomfortable sat waiting for my first treatment. The place is the same, but everything about me has changed. It feels wrong to be here on so many levels. First there is a slight sense of inadequacy that follows me everywhere now. I have internalised Aunt Lydia – _Worthless slut! Somewhere like this isn’t for the likes of you, dear…_ Second there is a creeping unease at the idea of other people having access to my body, looking at and touching parts of me, doing things to me while I lie there still. Thirdly, there is my mother’s voice echoing around in my head.

_“Why do you like those places? Why do you have to spend so much time on your appearance? Haven’t you got better things to do? Don’t you know any man who values the outside over the inside isn’t worth having, anyway?”_

_“I’m not doing it to get a man – I’m doing it for me, to feel better about myself.”_

_“Well, I just think it’s a sad world we’re living in if the only way you can feel good about yourself is looking in a mirror.”_

My name is called and I am ushered deeper into the building. I get to pick what I want to do first and I decide to start with a mani-pedi. They bring me a glass of champagne to drink, even though it is well before noon, and I start to relax. There is no reason why I shouldn’t enjoy this, why I can’t be the June from Before for just a few hours.

Next is a facial, followed by a hair treatment. There is an awkward moment when the woman washing the nourishing mask out of my hair notices the red tag still in my ear. The tag has been a cause of quite a few disagreements between me, Luke and Moira. They don’t understand why I don’t just get it removed. They see it as a symbol Gilead still owns me, a continued mark of my sexual slavery that I ought to passionately reject. I get that, I used to feel that way about it too, was so desperate to get rid of the first red tag that I cut off part of my own ear with it. Now, though, my perspective has changed. The tag is part of me, part of my story. I was a Handmaid, that is a truth I can’t erase, I need to embrace it, accept it, deal with it and move on, not try to pretend it never happened. I want people to ask about the red tag. I want to be able to tell them ‘Yes, I was a Handmaid. Yes, it was as terrible as they say it is. That’s why we need to talk about it, make a fuss, stop it happening to other people’.

But the hairdresser doesn’t ask any questions, she flushes slightly and deliberately looks away from that ear, to other part of my hair, changing the subject to talk about other frivolous things.

_The weather’s getting colder isn’t it? I always love the first snow, but by March I hate it. It’ll be the Holidays soon, do you have any plans?_

I answer hesitantly, wishing I was braver, wishing I had more strength to say the things I know need to be said.

“Come back for the blow dry later,” the hairdresser instructs. “Then we’ll have it looking perfect before you leave.”

She sends me to another room, for a leg and bikini wax it turns out. The therapist in there is less friendly, she looks unimpressed I am still fully dressed and hands me a cotton gown.

“Take your things off and lie on the couch. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I take off my clothes and leave them in haphazard pile. There is probably a changing area somewhere that I have missed. The room I am in is small and completely white. I lay down on the couch, naked except for the thin gown, waiting for the therapist to come back. The whiteness washes over me. White walls, white ceiling, white gown, white sheet underneath me. Waiting. Waiting for someone to come back, lift the gown, open my legs, touch my body.

I start to panic. Memories of Gilead wash over me. I am lying in a hospital examination room. The doctor is coming. His fingers linger too long inside me. He offers to rape me and I thank him politely. They ultrasound me with a transvaginal probe that is pushed around too forcefully. Serena is looking at the pictures and talking about _her_ baby. My heart pounds in my chest and my breathing speeds up. _They’re going to take my baby! I have to get out of here, I have to get away!_

I get up off the couch, start pulling on my clothes. I am back in Gilead, I am escaping again from the hospital room, running down the stairs, following the red dots. I have to get out of there without being seen. Rationally I know I am free to leave, no one is keeping me there, but I am still terrified of being noticed, being stopped as I try to get out. I pull on my boots, manage to find my coat, my purse, get lost down endless white corridors, before finding a fire door, sneaking through to stairs that lead to a back entrance.

Tears are streaming down my face. My heart is racing, my head spins, I can’t feel my fingers or toes. I can’t think, can’t breathe. I have to get out of there. I’m going to die if I don’t get out. I burst through the exit door into a back alley, rush blindly out into the cold air and straight into a man dressed in black.

Incredibly, it is Nick. For a second I panic even more. All the old uncertainties race to the front of my mind. He is a Guardian, an Eye, one of _them_. What is he doing here? Is he here to stop me, send me back, or is he here to help me? Whose side is he on?

He throws the cigarette he is smoking to the ground, catches me by the arm, pulls me towards him and further into the shadows of the alleyway. He puts one hand on the back of my neck, drawing my head in towards his chest, just like he always used to. He says my name over and over.

_June? June, what happened? June, it’s okay. June, June, June, June._

Eventually, I start to come back to myself. My breathing steadies and my head clears. I pull away from him and wipe my eyes and nose on the sleeve of my coat. He looks at me hard.

“What’s going on? What happened?”

I shake my head, feeling stupid now I am calmer and it is all over.

“It’s my birthday,” I tell him, and he looks even more confused.

“I was in the spa,” I try to explain. “It was a birthday present. I used to like going, y’know, Before. I was supposed to have all these treatments, but we got up to the bikini wax and I-I kind of freaked out.”

“Bikini wax?” he raises an eyebrow. “In November?”

I punch him lightly on the arm. “It’s a valid thing. They do your legs as well.” His eyes stray involuntarily to my jeans and knee high boots, but he says nothing.

“They put me in a gown on a couch in this white room,” I say, still shaking slightly just thinking about it. “And it was like I was back there in hospital, waiting for the doctor to come and put his hands inside me. And I just had to get out.”

“Okay,” Nick nods, and I notice his hands are clenched tight by his sides. “You did okay.”

I take a deep breath in and out, feeling the cold winter air burn my nose and throat. “What are _you_ doing here anyway?” I ask him.

“Working,” he answers shortly. “I just dropped a guy off to a meeting in one of the conference rooms.” He checks his watch. “Stay here, don’t go anywhere, okay?”

I don’t even think to argue, just shrink further into the darkness and quiet of the alley to wait as Nick disappears inside the hotel and then reappears a few minutes later.

“They’re going to call me when the meeting’s done and I need to pick the guy up,” he explains. “Come with me now.”

He takes me by the arm and leads me out into the street.

“Where are we going?” I ask, starting to feel self-conscious about my appearance. My hair is only half dried, probably stuck up all over the place, and my face is a tear-stained mess.

“Somewhere just around the corner. Don’t worry, it’s pretty casual.”

After a couple of blocks he turns down a side street and in through the doorway of a small restaurant. It is quiet at this time of day, but the atmosphere seems friendly, and very location-specific.

“Oh my God,” I gasp. “It’s like Canada exploded in here.”

“Yup,” Nick nods, pulling me into a booth near the back of the room.

“There’s a moose on the wall!” I point out the taxidermy above our booth. As well as this there are Canadian flags everywhere, photographs of famous Canadian landmarks and people, maple leaf bunting, even hockey playing silently on a TV in the corner.

“It’s the most Canadian place I could find in Toronto,” Nick explains once we are seated. “They put maple syrup on _everything_. It’s mostly for tourists, but I like to come here when I can. When I need to remind myself I’m really out.”

I nod, understanding. It is safe here, surrounded by symbols of the country that has become our refuge. Nothing is like Gilead, nothing in this room can take you back there.

“I don’t get Little America,” Nick shakes his head. “Why would you want to be nostalgic for something that doesn’t exist anymore?”

A waitress hustles up to us. She is wearing a maple leaf apron. “What can I get you folks?”

“Two coffees,” Nick orders. “And some poutine to share.”

“Poutine?” I ask when the waitress has gone.

“French fries, cheese curds and gravy,” he explains.

I wrinkle my nose. “Sounds gross.”

“Yeah, but it’s very Canadian.”

We drink our coffee and eat our food, which turns out to actually taste okay. We don’t talk much, a little about Holly, a little about Hannah, a little about Nick’s job. We don’t mention what happened at the spa again, and we certainly don’t discuss how things are going between me and Luke. After a while Nick’s phone buzzes and he frowns.

“Gotta go. You gonna be okay?”

“Sure,” I nod. “I’ll get a cab home.”

He stands to leave, pausing to drop a twenty on the table before he goes. I look up at him and our eyes lock.

“Thank you, Nick,” I whisper.

He trails his fingers lightly over my arm before withdrawing his hand back into his coat pocket.

“Happy Birthday, June.”

*

I make it home early enough to fix my face and hair before Luke arrives. Moira and Erin are picking up the children, so it is just us. He wants to know how my day went, and I don’t want him to feel bad about the expensive gift he gave me that turned out a disaster, so I fake a cheerful answer, showing him my professionally painted nails. He cooks dinner, a salmon and pasta dish that used to be a favourite of mine, and I make an effort to enjoy it.

The evening should be lovely, but I am still shaken by my panic attack earlier in the day, my nerves still on edge, my mind distracted by thoughts of seeing Nick earlier. I can still feel traces of his hands on my skin, even though he barely touched me at all. My arm burns from where he trailed his fingers along it, and I wish I’d reached up to stop him leaving, to ask when I could see him again.

I hate myself for these thoughts when I know I should be devoting my attention to Luke. He is kind, loving, supportive, and he deserves more from me.

After dessert, we sit on the sofa. We watch some TV and he edges closer, rubbing my arm and then my leg. I am passive, letting him make the moves, accepting but not encouraging. He becomes bolder, his hand is under my top now, on my stomach. His face is close to mine and I wriggle involuntarily as his beard tickles my cheek.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply automatically. How can it not be okay? I am his wife, we are trying to make this work.

“Is this okay?” He touches my breast, under my top but over my bra, kisses the line of my jaw, moves towards my lips.

“Yes,” I murmur again.

He pushes my bra out of the way, feeling for the nipple and kisses me open mouthed. His other hand reaches between my legs, cupping me through my jeans.

“Does it feel good?” he asks in a hoarse voice.

“Yes,” I try to answer, but the lie catches in my throat. I can’t help but flashback to Waterford at Jezebels, his hands all over me in the hotel room.

_Did you like that?_

_Yes._

_Let me know next time._

This feels the same, a faked response to sex I never wanted to have. The reasons are different, Luke isn’t forcing me, of course, I am forcing myself. I want to want this, I should want it. Luke is a good man, he loves me and he can give me a good life, a safe life where he will be there for me and my children. And if this is all he asks in return – a chance to take his pleasure every so often – then isn’t that a fair exchange?

_No._

No, it’s not fair to me and not fair to him pretending something I don’t feel. Just because he waited for me doesn’t mean I owe him this. Just because we were happy once doesn’t mean we have to cling to the memory of that forever. I don’t want this. I don’t have to have it. I don’t belong to anyone. I am my own person. I am free.

“No,” I say out loud, struggling to release myself from his embrace. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

He backs off immediately, returning to his own end of the sofa.

“That’s okay,” he tells me. “We don’t have to if you’re not ready. I’m sorry, I pushed too hard.”

I straighten my clothing, wrapping my arms around myself.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat.

“That’s okay,” he echoes back, reaching for the remote and turning the sound up on the TV.


	11. Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June goes to see Nick. They talk about his past. Other stuff happens.

In the days that follow I keep thinking about Nick’s words about being nostalgic for things that don’t exist anymore. Is that what I’m doing with my marriage, with my old life? If I can’t go back then how do I move forwards?

I feel like I need to do something for myself again, something unconnected to my home and family. Since I got back from Gilead I’ve resisted going back to work. We have our refugee allowance and Luke’s salary, so the money isn’t essential, and I’ve felt guilty about wanting something just for me. I’ve missed so much of the girl’s lives already I wanted to be there for them, to make every drop off and pick up, be at every school event, always be there to look after them at home if they were sick. I wanted to be the model mom, above rebuke, someone whose kids would never get taken away again.

Add to this the fact that in the early days back from Gilead there was simply so much to think about and do. There were so many aspects of our lives that needed reorganising, things to buy, Hannah’s schooling to sort out, endless reams of legal paperwork to fill in, offices to trail to and from for meetings with dozens of different people who all wanted to hear again and again what had happened to us and how we made it out to Canada.

Gilead had made me lazy. I got so used to doing very little. Take a walk in the morning to do a little grocery shopping. Come back home, sit and stare out the window for six hours. Once a month get raped. I was suddenly busier than I had been for years, and exhausted all the time because of it. Thinking about getting a job as well was just one thing too much to face doing.

Now, though, my life seems to be settling down, and I am back to having long stretches of nothingness in the daytime that I want to fill. I feel like I am recovering from a long illness and my energy is gradually returning. A fog that had surrounded me is lifting and I can think clearly again. I want to be active, stimulated, change and make changes, set an example for my children.

I start by going through the old letters, the ones that Moira smuggled out of Jezebels, that Nick gave to Luke, that Luke put out on the internet. I read them again, but this time I transcribe them as well, typing out the words, pulling out the most compelling phrases, cutting parts that become incoherent, rearranging order, correcting spelling and grammar. In other words, I edit them into a narrative. Together they tell a story of a generation of women lost, oppressed, suffering. I wonder where they all are now. Some will have escaped, some will be dead, most will still be there, waking up every day in a nightmare.

There is a support group that meets at the refugee centre, for women who have escaped from Gilead. They are Handmaids, Marthas, a few Jezebels. Mostly they share stories, talk about their experiences, support one another. I begin to go to the meetings, I feel readier now to share my story, to hear the tales of the others. I ask permission to write some of them down, to commit the words to paper, added to the accounts from the letters.

One day Emily is there at the group. Apart from an emotional reunion I haven’t seen much of her since I arrived in Canada. Last I heard she had moved to Montreal with Syl and Oliver to try and make a fresh start.

“I’m in Toronto for a symposium,” she explained. “For work. I wanted to drop in on a meeting. Sometimes they help.”

I ask after Syl and Oliver. Her face falls.

“We couldn’t make it work,” she explains. “There was just too much. I was angry all the time, even at Syl, even though it wasn’t her fault. I couldn’t make it stop.”

She looks sad and fragile, even more so than she did in Gilead, like she will break at any moment.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter.

“It’s okay,” she blinks tears out of her huge blue eyes. “I still get to see Oliver. We still all hang out sometimes. It’s not the same, but I guess you can’t expect things to be, not after everything that happened.”

I don’t ask to record Emily’s story, somehow it seems too private, too raw, but I do collect more and more other accounts. In between the other women’s stories, my own starts to take shape. For a time my life had felt like a canvas, with layer upon layer of pain daubed on it like paint. Only by stripping the layers away could you see the picture of who I used to be. Now I start to see my life as a road that I have travelled, a journey taken to become who I am now, a tale that can be told. Soon I will write that tale down, a catharsis for myself, a legacy for my daughters, a tribute to the women who are still suffering that life. But first I need to reach the journey’s end.

*

It is mid-December when I decide to go and visit Nick. I choose a day when I know he will be home but Rita will be working. I tell Luke I am going Christmas shopping. The lie doesn’t bother me, we lie to each other all the time now. Every time we talk about the future it is a lie and we both know it. Our marriage is over. He doesn’t try to touch me anymore, and I don’t regret it. Gradually we have stopped going to therapy. We don’t fight, we don’t hate one another, we have simply changed, fizzled out. We will spend Christmas together for the sake of the girls, but after that I don’t know what will happen.

Or maybe I do know, but I have to be sure.

There is a holly wreath on the apartment door, it is very tasteful, very Rita. I smile as I knock. Nick answers, doesn’t look surprised to see me, even though I didn’t call and we haven’t spoken for weeks. Sometimes I fucking hate how contained he is, holding all his feelings deep inside while mine are boiling over.

“I want to know,” I say without preamble.

“Know what?”

“Everything.”

He looks confused. I guess I understand that, I’m being a little non-specific.

“I want to know about you. I need to know what to tell Holly – what to tell myself.”

He thinks for a moment, fidgets, looks up, looks down. Then:

“What do you want to know?”

“Who are you Nick? Tell me about your family, what you were like when you were a kid, what sports team do you follow, what’s your favourite food, favourite colour, what music do you like to listen to?”

“Music?”

“Yeah,” I nod. “You had a record player in your apartment at the Waterfords. What did you like to listen to? Tell me something, anything, Nick. I need something.”

He hesitates. “You’re the one who’s not been here for months.”

“I’m here now,” I persist. “Talk to me.”

He sighs, comes closer towards me. “You’ll make fun of me,” he says.

I shake my head. “I won’t, I swear.”

He nods, but is still sceptical. “Swing,” he says finally.

“Swing?” The answer is so left field, I think he must be lying.

“Yeah, swing, big band, 1940s and 50s stuff. Y’know, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, that sort of thing.”

“Really?” I ask weakly.

He looks unhappy. “Told you you’d laugh.”

I shake my head, move closer to him, reach for his hand. “No, no, I really want to know. Why swing?”

He lets me take his hand, smiles slightly. “My Grandma was a big fan, used to play it all the time when we stayed with her, me and Joshua. And there was lots of it about on records, easy to get hold of, Gilead didn’t destroy it all, like they did most things.”

I nod, remembering the cultural purges. Whole libraries of books burned, computers and CDs destroyed, magazines, clothes, DVDs and videotape, posters, artwork, musical instruments, all rounded up and incinerated.

An idea occurs to me and I smile saucily. “So you like swing, but can you dance to it?”

To my surprise he smiles back. “Yeah, I can. I was in the swing dance club at high school.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shakes his head. “Not many guys joined. It was a great way to meet girls.”

“Show me some moves,” I insist and he reluctantly slips his arm around my waist in a dance hold.

“This is a rock step,” he explains. “Step back on your left foot, then forward with your right. Okay, that’s it. Do the opposite to me, and keep going. There you go.”

We move together awkwardly without music, Nick is casual, rhythmic, but I have two left feet. He tries to spin me and I laugh.

“I definitely lost my virginity because of swing club,” he offers. “Kelly Michaels. Lucy-Ann Sharples as well.” His face gets the universal smirk men possess when recalling their sexual conquests. “And very nearly Brittany Pierson.”

“Only nearly,” I tease. “Couldn’t seal the deal?”

The smirk disappears and his face darkens, we stop dancing. “No, my dad found out I was in a dance club and didn’t like it.”

I grin broadly, delighted by the confidences we are sharing. “Omigod, don’t tell me this is going to be like the plot to a bad teen movie. He didn’t want you to dance, so you had to train in secret for the big competition. Then he saw you competing and realised how proud he was of you after all…”

“No,” Nick pulls away from me, not meeting my eye. “He broke my collar bone and I had to quit.”

The smile dies on my face. I don’t know what to say. “Shit…Nick…”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

I move to close the distance between us again. I remember what he said to me in Gilead once: _I’m not like you June._ _I didn’t have a rosy life with a happy little family._ Is this what he meant? When he was beaten up in prison he brushed it off as nothing, was that because he was used to far worse growing up?

“It does matter,” I tell him. “Did your dad, did he hit you a lot?”

He looks up at me, stricken. “I’m not going to hurt Holly, I promise.”

I shake my head, stunned. “Of course you’re not. I know that. I trust you, Nick.”

He looks at me hard, like he is not sure whether to believe me. But it is the truth, despite the questions between us in the past, I do trust him. I trust him with my daughter and I trust him with myself.

He turns his back on me, walking towards the kitchen, he opens a cupboard, reaches for a glass, changes his mind, closes it again. His usual restless behaviour when he is bothered by something. I wait it out.

“It runs in families, doesn’t it?” he says eventually. “Violence. Abuse.”

“It doesn’t have to,” I offer.

Nick sighs. “He was a mean drunk. My dad. He would get angry and take it out on my mom. She left when I was eleven. I don’t blame her for it,” he glares at me like I might contradict him. “He would have killed her if she stayed.”

I say nothing, aware how much these admissions are costing him, afraid he will stop talking if I interrupt.

“After she was gone, Joshua – my brother – he took the worst of it. He tried to protect me when he could. He was three years older than me. I learned to be quiet, not cause trouble, do what I was told,” he says the last bitterly. “Josh, he didn’t cope so well. He started drinking when he was fifteen or sixteen. He used to steal Dad’s liquor. Said if he was going to get beat on anyway, he might as well get something out of it.”

“What happened to him?” I ask.

Nick turns his back on me. “He fell apart after high school. Drank more and more. Lost his job and couldn’t get another one, gave up trying in the end. I tried to help him. I was…I was involved with the Sons of Jacob by then. Pryce said he could find me work, get me some money, get Joshua enrolled in a program to get him better. Josh didn’t like it, said I should have nothing to do with the Sons of Jacob or Pryce. We argued. He drove off. He’d been drinking. There was an accident.”

I stand behind him, close but not quite touching. I reach for his hand where it rests on the counter, place mine on top of his.

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “It was a long time ago.”

I think of the photograph of the two boys by the lake. Even then already so damaged. One would die and the other would go on to see and do terrible things. So much tragedy in one picture.

“He was your brother.”

He turns around to face me, our hands are still touching, he rubs his thumb in circles on my palm. My mouth turns suddenly dry and my heart pounds in my ears. I feel pulled towards him by an irresistible force, like gravity or magnetism. Every nerve ending in my body seems to be concentrated in that spot on my hand where his fingers move. I flex my hand, opening and closing it. His movement stills, but he doesn’t let go. His breathing is ragged like mine. There is an inevitability to what must happen next. It doesn’t feel like a choice. Maybe I already made the choice when I decided to come here.

We kiss. It is open mouthed, passionate, desperate. Need for one another spills out uncontained. I tear at him, at his clothes, at my own. I must have his hands on me, around me, inside me. In the moment I wonder how I could have lived without this for so long, how I ever thought I could go on living without this. I cry out when he enters me. He doesn’t stop. I don’t want him to stop. I don’t want him to ever stop.

After the first frenzied time in the kitchen, neither of us are sated. He carries me to his bedroom, my legs still wrapped around his waist, and we undress each other fully. Now the sex is leisurely, deliberate, his mouth and hands worship every inch of my body and I close my eyes, surrendering myself to the pleasure of it all.

Afterwards we lie in a tangle together and I draw patterns with my fingers over the bare skin of his chest. It is an old ritual, I used to trace my name repeatedly on his body when we were in Gilead together. _June, June, June._ It wasn’t about possession, it was more the fact his skin was the only place I could write it. With him was often the only place I had a name.

“What about your dad?” I ask when I eventually feel like talking again.

“What?”

“Your dad? What happened to him?” I move my fingers lazily as I talk, wandering them down his chest to his stomach, brushing the line of hair that runs from his pubis to his belly button, drifting around to touch the curve of his hip bone.

He catches my hand in his, holding it still. “June,” he warns.

I ignore his tone. “And your mom, where did she end up, did you ever see her again after she left?”

He pulls away from me, moves out the bed to start looking for his clothes.

“I thought we were done talking about this.”

I shake my head impatiently. “We weren’t done talking, we just did something else for a while. That doesn’t mean end of subject. You have to talk to me about this, Nick. This is your family. Holly’s family. She has a right to know about them, about where she comes from.”

“She’s better off without them.”

“Like she’s better off without you?” I shoot back at him, feeling a flash of annoyance. I thought we’d broken down barriers between us, I thought he was finally going to be open and honest with me, and now he has closed right back down again.

He stares at me, expressionless except for a muscle that twitches in his jaw. “If you say so.”

“Fuck Nick,” I swear at him, climbing out of bed myself and searching for my underwear. “I thought we were past this ‘I’m not good enough’ shit. I thought we were having a real conversation.”

He opens and closes his mouth like he’s about to say something, but can’t quite bring himself to. I am irrationally angry now, feeling exposed by my nakedness both literal and figurative. I want to know that I can connect with him on a level other than sex, but it seems every time I fail. I am betrayed by my own desire for him. It was a mistake to sleep with him. Maybe it was a mistake to come here at all.

“I have to go,” I announce, locating essential items of clothing and pulling them on. “I told Luke I was going shopping. He’ll be wondering where I am.”

Nick looks away. “Okay.”

“Okay!?” I explode back at him. “I’m going home to my husband and all you can say is ‘okay’? Do you even give a shit? What is this to you?” I wave my hand between us. “Casual sex?”

He says nothing and I continue getting dressed, internally fuming, trying to ignore the feeling of his eyes watching me. That’s Nick all over, always watching, waiting, never taking the initiative and actually _doing_ something.

“Well,” I say, standing at the bedroom door. “See you then.”

“June – ” he calls after me, and I wait what seems like an eternity for him to carry on.

“I used to have this stupid fantasy,” he says eventually and I frown.

“What?”

“I had this fantasy,” he repeats, following me out into the hallway of the apartment, barefooted, shirt still unbuttoned. “That I could dress you up, like Waterford did to go to Jezebels. Except you’d be wearing something like this,” he gestures to my clothes. “Jeans and a jersey. And we’d go somewhere normal. Like a hockey game, or to see a movie. And we could hold hands in the street.”

He reaches out as if he is going to take my hand, and then changes his mind at the last minute. “Stupid,” he says again.

I close my eyes, blow out a long sigh. How is it he can be so bold with my body when it comes to having sex, but so reticent with his feelings? Is it my fault? Is it because I always felt guilty letting myself love him, always ignored him when he made a proclamation, always reduced us to the physical? I made him a warm body, my comfort and security, and at some point he stopped expecting to ever be anything more.

Then he surprises me.

“I’m in love with you, June,” he says quietly. “I always have been, since the beginning. You’re the one who needs to work out what you want. When you do, I’m here.”

This time I am the one who is speechless. Having pushed him into saying what I most wanted to hear I have no idea what to say in response. Wordlessly I turn and leave. He doesn’t try to follow me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting towards the end now. I'll aim to post the remaining chapters later this week. Thank you to everyone who is still reading. I'd love to know what you all think.


	12. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June talks to Hannah before making her final decision between Luke and Nick.

Over the next couple of weeks I think about that afternoon a lot. The thoughts in my head feel like jigsaw pieces I have been pushing around for the longest time, but are now falling into place, making a coherent picture. Talking with Nick seems to have filled in missing pieces, completing the puzzle. I see him differently now, that little-boy-lost look he sometimes has making more sense. I can understand better why he might have fallen in with Gilead now, how the Sons of Jacob might have drawn him in.

When I researched them at the Boston Globe offices, a recurring value they promoted was family, putting children first, zero tolerance of licentious behaviour, alcohol or drugs. Of course, this would appeal to a child from a family torn apart by alcoholism, consistently placed last in his parents’ priorities. Even the violence would be less shocking to someone who has grown up in a world where physical abuse was normal, or even claimed as a manifestation of love.

How privileged my upbringing seems, with a mother whose greatest fault was merely to criticise the conventionality of my choices, to push me towards better. I miss her desperately now. I wish I could talk to her again and ask her advice. I think she would tell me to stop living for those around me and live for myself, that if I want to teach my daughters to be true to themselves, to find their own happiness from within, I need to start by setting the example. Hannah and Holly will be fine, they are safe and they are loved. Everything else is character building, my mother would say.

Nevertheless, I worry about the effects my decisions will have on them, the impact on their lives. I want to give Hannah particularly one idealised childhood moment, one textbook family Christmas before everything changes for her again. I become obsessed with the idea of making everything perfect, the decorations, the food, the gifts. I want the kind of Christmas you see in the movies, surrounded by loving family, completely different from those she will have known in Gilead.

We decorate the tree together, make Christmas cookies, sing carols and I drag the girls to see our local department store Santa, even though Hannah stopped believing years ago and Holly is too young to have much of an idea what is happening. Luke and Moira play along with it all, letting me have free reign on making Christmas plans, but it is Hannah in the end who calls me on my manic behaviour.

“You don’t have to do all this you know, Mom,” she says two days before Christmas, when Holly is napping and I am making myself crazy stringing popcorn and wrapping presents.

“I just want to make it perfect for you, baby,” I tell her.

She screws up her face. “I don’t want it to be perfect.”

“Why not?” I ask gently, when she doesn’t say anything more.

She looks upset. “Perfect is really hard. With my parents in Gilead everything had to be perfect all the time. I wasn’t allowed to make a mess, or talk too loud or do anything wrong. Perfect isn’t fun. I like it better here.”

My heart goes out to her. I don’t know whether to be sad about all the childhood she has lost or joyful that she appreciates we made the right choice getting her out and is happier here. Despite the fact I know a future in Gilead would have been a disaster for Hannah, I have still felt desperately guilty about pulling her away from the home she had there, the parents who – despite their limitations – did love her.

“I’m glad you like it here better,” I hug her tightly to me. “I’ll mess up a few things, try and make it less perfect for you.”

She hugs me back then returns to the schoolwork she is doing. It is a printed worksheet, match the names of the Christmas objects to their pictures then colour them in. It is something you might expect a first or second grader to be able to do, but Hannah applies herself diligently, carefully copying the letters in wobbly handwriting. I am so proud of how she has coped with all the upheaval in her life, quietly understanding, hardly ever complaining.

“Do you miss them?” I ask her quietly. “Your parents from Gilead.”

She looks at me guiltily. “It’s okay if you do,” I reassure her. “I miss some stuff from there too.”

“Like what?” she asks with interest.

I think for a moment. “The quiet, sometimes. It’s always so busy here. And my friends. I had some good friends there, other Handmaids.”

“Do you miss Commander Nick?” she asks out of the blue.

“What?” I stutter back in surprise.

“Nichole’s dad. I saw you holding hands with him when we were running away from Gilead. And you started spending Saturdays with him, but now you spend them with me and Daddy.”

“Don’t you like spending Saturdays with me and Daddy?” I ask her lightly.

She nods. “Yeah, but I don’t want to make you sad.”

I shake my head. “I’m not sad.”

She looks at me like she knows I’m lying. “Yes, you are. And Daddy’s sad too.” She looks away and I can tell she is trying very hard not to cry. “Are you going to get a divorce?”

I want to be honest with her, but I don’t want to break her heart either. “I don’t know, sweetie,” I tell her. “Would you be really upset if we did?”

She shrugs. “What would happen to me?”

I flounder for a second, tears burning in my own eyes. “We would still love you more than anything in the world. And you could live with me, or with Daddy, or both, whatever you wanted.”

“Could we still spend Saturdays all together?”

“Sure, of course.”

“And would you and Nichole go and live with Commander Nick?”

I bite my lip. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe. What would you think about that? Do you like him?”

She hesitates and I hold my breath.

“Did he make you have a baby with him?” she asks. “I heard Commanders force Handmaids to have babies with them, then take the babies away.”

I shake my head, blinking away tears. “No, sweetie. That’s not what happened with Nick. I was…I was supposed to have another Commander’s baby, but he – ” I pause, searching for the right words to say to a child. “He wasn’t very nice. So, I had a baby with Nick instead.”

Hannah looks unconvinced by this inadequate explanation, so I press on. “Nick was kind to me. He tried to take care of me. And he helped us all to get to Canada. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”

Hannah frowns. “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” I answer and it feels liberating to, for once, not equivocate or qualify it with ‘maybe, but..’. I love Nick Blaine. Not because I am frightened or lonely, not because I have no other choices, not because he has somehow tricked me into feeling that way. I love him for who he is and what we have been together and what we could be in the future.

“Do you love Daddy?”

“Yes,” I answer again. “I will never stop loving Daddy. But it’s not the same between us as it was before, and that makes me feel sad all the time.”

Hannah thinks about this. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

I pull her into a tight embrace. “Thank you, honey. But it’s not just about me. I don’t want you to be sad either.”

She squeezes me back. “I’ll be okay. I love you Mommy.”

“I love you too, Hannah-Banana.”

She releases me, picks up her pencil again and fiddles with it. “Did you want to invite Nick for Christmas?”

I am astounded by her generosity and for a second I don’t know what to say. But then I think about what we all really need.

“No. I think we should have a special day with just Daddy. And Aunty Moira. If that’s okay with you?”

She breathes a little sigh of relief and I know I have done the right thing. “That sounds good.”

I grin. “Good but not perfect, right?”

She smiles back. “Right.”

*

In the end Christmas day is almost perfect. I am overwhelmed by the wonder of it, the magic of all the little moments I never thought I would get to see again. Holly surrounded by a pile of shredded paper, almost more interested in the glistening reds and golds of the wrapping than the presents inside. Hannah’s delighted expression and whoop of excitement when she receives the iphone she desperately wanted for Christmas but thought we would never be able to afford. Luke in his ridiculous novelty sweater and Santa hat. Moira arriving late with armfuls of still more gifts, filling the apartment with even more noise and laughter.

After presents we head outside to the park to play in the snow while Luke cooks. Then we all eat far too much and collapse in front of the television. Nick and Rita videocall Holly and we promise to catch up soon. I feel tired and satisfied, surrounded by love. For the first time in the longest time I feel safe, secure in the knowledge that everything will work out okay.

After Moira has left and the girls have gone to bed, Luke and I sit on the sofa together in companionable silence.

“I should probably tidy up,” I say eventually, starting to move.

“Leave it till tomorrow,” Luke says lazily. “We should sit and talk now.”

“Now?” I ask, slightly worried. “Are you sure?”

Luke smiles tiredly. “Yeah. It’s been a good day. I think it should be now, when we’re on a high.”

I reach over and squeeze his hand. “It’s been a great day.”

He sighs. “I want to have more days like this and less of the bad days in between.”

I nod carefully. “Me too.”

He turns to me seriously. “Hannah spoke to me. She said that she would be okay if we wanted to get a divorce, that she wanted to split her time living with both of us.”

“Oh,” is all I can manage to say in reply.

“Do you want a divorce, June?” he asks outright.

“Luke I – ”

He breathes out shakily, interrupting me. “I don’t want to make this difficult for you. There’s something you should know.”

I turn to him, stricken. “What?”

He laughs slightly, not a happy sound, but bitterly, ironically. “There’s a woman from the Free America group. We’ve had lunch together a few times. I didn’t want to tell you before.”

“Oh,” I say again, thinking back to Luke and I meeting for lunch when he was still married to Annie. He didn’t tell _her_ then either.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay,” I reply, deciding to bite the bullet. “I slept with Nick.”

He looks at me sharply. “A couple of weeks ago,” I specify. “When I was supposed to be out Christmas shopping.”

“Oh,” it is his turn to say it now. “You win.”

“I guess I do.”

I don’t bother apologising. How do you say sorry for something that was inevitable, something that needed to happen to move all our lives forwards?

Luke drops his head into his hands. I thought he would be angry but he is not. After a second I realise he is crying.

“Are you in love with him?” he asks after a long pause.

“Yes,” I give him the same straightforward answer I have Hannah. This time, though, it is devastating as well as liberating, an end as well as a beginning.

Luke wipes his eyes, pulling himself together. “I guess I always had it coming. I left my wife for someone else, and now the same thing is happening to me.”

I shake my head furiously. “No, it has nothing to do with that, Luke. None of this has anything to do with you. It’s all because of Gilead. I needed Nick in there and I can’t stop needing him now.”

Luke tears up again. “I shouldn’t have left you in there, I should have fought harder, tried harder to get you out…”

I put my hand on his arm. “You couldn’t have done that,” I tell him forcefully. “You would have been killed. None of this is your fault. Gilead is something that happened. Something that happened to _me_. It wasn’t your fault, and it isn’t your responsibility to fix it. You need to let it go, you need to let me go.”

“Okay,” he nods through his tears. “I just want to know you’re going to be all right.”

I take him into my arms and soothe him gently.

“I’ll be all right.” I promise him. “It’s all going to be all right.”

*

Two days later I have packed an overnight bag for me and Holly. We talked to Hannah and she decided to stay with Luke for a while, just until things are a bit more settled. When I left I kissed Luke on the cheek and promised to call him later. _I love you_ , I told him instead of goodbye, _take care of yourself_ , he replied.

Rita answers the door when I knock. She takes one look at me, Holly and our bags and turns to speak to Nick.

“It’s for you,” she says shortly. “Come on, Holly,” she reaches for my little girl. “Come and play with your Auntie Rita.”

I see Nick across the room, he is washing dishes in the kitchen area. He puts the plate he is holding down, wipes the soap suds from his hands and walks over to me slowly.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” I return. Then, by way of explanation: “I left Luke.”

“Okay.” He moves closer. I put my heavy bag down. I am breathing hard, nervous, but also conscious of a happiness bubbling up inside me.

“I’m in love with you too,” I tell him, and before I can take another breath he is kissing me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Hannah. I felt she was getting a bit ignored in this fic, so I wanted to give her a chance to have her say. Final chapter coming up next!


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June settles in to life with Nick.

Moira takes it better than I expected.

“You’re my girl,” she tells me, putting her arm around my neck. “If this is what you want then I support you. Even if I think you’re totally crazy.”

“That’s the problem,” I try to explain, smiling. “I was normal when I met Luke, I’m fucked up now, I need someone just as fucked up as me.”

“Girl, you were never normal,” she shoots back and we laugh together.

Holly and I move in with Nick and Rita. The two-bed apartment is way too small, especially Sunday through Tuesday when Hannah comes to stay. Instead of leaving behind Rita, one day Nick takes us all for a drive and stops in front of a house with a ‘For Rent’ sign.

“It’s three bedrooms, small yard, not too far from school and daycare,” he explains. “I told the realtor we were out of Gilead and she said she could make us a deal on the price – she has a cousin still stuck there.”

“You would have me come and live with you too?” Rita asks, for once struggling to keep the emotion out of her voice.

“Of course,” I answer without needing to think about it. “You’re family.”

She nods and reaches out from the back seat to put her hand on my shoulder. I smile back at her teasingly.

“Besides, we need you. Neither of us can cook. And…live in childcare.”

Rita withdraws her hand. “You should be so lucky,” she mutters in her usual sardonic tone. But I know she is not being serious, she dotes on Holly and is always happy taking care of her.

So we take the place and we settle into a routine. Rita does the cooking, Nick does odd jobs around the house and the yard and I do the grocery shopping and help out with the housework. Sometimes I worry it is a pattern too reminiscent of Gilead, but it feels comfortable, and here no one is being forced to do anything they don’t want to do. If Rita doesn’t feel like cooking, we get take out. If I don’t have time to go to the market, Nick will stop on his way home from work. There is no threat of physical violence if the house isn’t spotlessly clean. Mostly it works for us, so I try not to over think it.

We try to make the new house work for Hannah and Holly too. When Hannah stays they share a bedroom that overlooks the yard. I let Hannah choose the colour and we paint it together, a pale, sky blue. The drapes have a pattern of pugs on them – subtle hint, she still wants a pet dog – and there are matching covers for the beds. On her side of the room she is allowed to put up whatever pictures or posters she likes and she chooses an eclectic mix of family photos, unbearably cute baby animals, pre-teen pop idols and ‘Free America’ placards. It won’t win any design prizes, but it tells a story of who she is, which is much more important.

Hannah spends half the week with us and the other half with Luke. Considering everything she has been through she is coping really well. Sometimes she is angry and often she is quiet, but she is still in therapy and we are trying to work through things. With Rita she gets on fine, with Nick it’s a little more complicated, but he never tries to push her for too much, which I think she is grateful for.

Luke has started seeing another woman, the same one from his Free America group. It is early days and she hasn’t met Hannah yet, but it seems to be going okay. There is a tiny twinge of jealousy when I think of them together, but mainly I am happy for him. He and I are working on divorce proceedings. It should be straightforward, the lawyers say, as we agree on nearly all of the settlement. The biggest argument came when I told him I wanted to change Nichole’s name officially to Holly. I think he felt like I was taking his daughter away and giving her to Nick. He said I’d been in Gilead too long if I thought I could just pass children around like objects, changing their names to suit who their parents are. He pointed out Hannah having her name changed to Agnes, and asked me how I thought it was any different.

It’s different because she was always called Holly, I tried to explain. That’s what I named her when she was born. Serena called her Nichole. When Serena let her go, helped her to escape Gilead, then I wanted to do something to pay a tribute to that, and keeping the name Nichole seemed right. But Serena didn’t hold up her end of the bargain, she changed her mind, fought as hard as she could to get Nichole back, and now all the name does is remind me of that time I was terrified for the safety of my baby.

Eventually, we come to agreement. Nichole becomes Holly Nichole and Luke gets visitation rights with her. He picks her up from daycare twice a week, once when he has Hannah, once when it is just the two of them. So far the arrangement seems to be going okay. Holly is a calm and content child, who seems to be fine whatever household she is staying in. She still calls Luke ‘Dada’ and Nick ‘Nic-Nic’, but Nick is so overwhelmed by the unexpected delight of having Holly in his life at all, that it doesn’t seem to bother him.

Living with Nick isn’t always easy. His failure to communicate still drives me mad as Hell, and now we share a house with two kids, his smoking habit has become a bone of contention between us. He’s making an effort, though, switching cigarettes for vaping and trying to join in the conversation over the dinner table. I try to be patient with him, he has never been part of a family like this before – the only man in a house full of crazy, noisy females – and it will take him time to adjust.

The passion between us flows like water. Sometimes it can be dry for days. We get busy with work, or the kids and we barely notice one another. Other times he can look at me a certain way, or brush against me as he passes by and suddenly I am drowning in him. Rita gets used to finding us kissing in hallways or bathrooms and, although she sometimes says she liked it better when we were sneaking around and she didn’t have to watch, I think she is generally happy that we are happy.

We _are_ happy. I’m pretty sure that I am, anyway, or as happy as I’m ever going to get. I still have nightmares a lot, and sometimes I wake up believing I am still in Gilead, that I never left. When that happens Nick holds me until I calm down, not saying or doing anything, just being there. Then he takes me to Holly and Hannah’s bedroom, so I can watch them sleeping, sometimes sitting on the floor with me beside Holly’s cot, until I fall asleep myself, drooling on his shoulder.

He is not romantic or effusive with his emotions. He doesn’t buy me flowers or gifts, Valentine’s Day passes without acknowledgement. But sometimes he surprises me with the depth of what he thinks and feels. On Holly’s second birthday we have a small party. Luke, Moira and Erin come, as well as a couple of other children from Holly’s daycare. It should be awkward, my husband and my lover in the same room, jostling for fatherhood duties of a child they both see as their daughter. Somehow it is not. Nick employs his talent for blending into the background while Luke fusses over Holly. I am watching them together when I feel arms creep around my waist from behind.

“I wish I’d been there,” Nick murmurs in my ear. “When she was born. I’m sorry I couldn’t.”

I place my hands over his on my stomach. “I wish you’d been there too.”

“I hate that you went through that alone.”

“I wasn’t alone, I had Holly. I’m glad I could spend that time with her – before they took her.”

He sighs, his breath tickling my ear. “It seems longer than two years.”

“I know what you mean,” I turn my head slightly towards him. “It seems like another lifetime.”

“We shouldn’t forget,” he says fiercely, tightening his arms around me. “We got out, but there are still people there, still living that every day.”

I close my eyes against the tidal wave of memories. “I don’t forget.”

He turns me gently to face him. “I read some of your book.”

I look up, surprised, I have been writing down my experiences of Gilead, an account to accompany those of the other Handmaids I have collected, but I haven’t shared it with anyone so far. “You did? It’s not ready yet.”

“I needed to print a form for Holly’s daycare,” he explains. “The file was open on the computer. I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to see it.”

I shake my head, not knowing what to say. There are things in it I have written about him. Not all of them are good.

“I thought it was incredible, June,” he tells me. “It’s the truth about Gilead and the world should know. The last few days I’ve been driving a journalist. He’s researching a book on Gilead. I want to show him what you wrote, I think you could get it published.”

I turn away from him, drop my eyes to the floor. “I’m not sure. It’s pretty personal.”

He lets me go, turns himself to watch Moira and Luke playing with Holly on the living room floor. He smiles slightly as Holly bops Luke over the head with one of her new toys and Moira laughs. “It’s up to you,” he shrugs. “But I think you’re not done fighting them yet.”

_You’re not done fighting them yet_.

Those words resonate more deeply than even Nick intended them too. They mean that he knows me, that he sees inside me things that I don’t see for myself yet. They are the reason I am with him, and not quietly slipping back into the pattern of my old life with Luke. They are the reason he loves me – for my strength, my passion, my sheer bloody-mindedness – and the reason I love him back – for his support and acceptance of everything I am, even when it makes his own life more difficult.

_I’m not done fighting._

I have my children and my freedom. I am safe from harm. I am autonomous. I no longer belong to anyone, I can choose who and how I love. The things that were taken from me I have wrestled back, and I have even gained things I never expected in the process. Another beautiful daughter. A vibrant relationship with a man I love. Friendships that will never be broken. So, why am I not done? Why can’t I just be thankful for what I have and get on with my life?

_Because They are not done._ Gilead still exists. Other Handmaids are still suffering. Some of them are my friends. I won’t stop until They stop. They tried to control me and They failed. They tried to break me and They failed. They tried to kill me and They failed. They tried to take my children from me and They failed. I will not fail. I will take _Their_ children. I will break _Them_. I will overcome.

The journalist reads some of the pages I have written. Together we take them to a publisher. He is overwhelmed. We agree on a book deal. My story intertwined with the accounts of other Handmaids, from the letters and from the stories I have gathered from other refugees. We are calling it _Handmaids’ Tales_. It will be out by the summer, timed to align with the Waterfords’ trial date. There will be publicity, the publisher warns me, interviews television and print. I will be expected to talk about myself, about the book, to defend the truth of what happened to me from people who will call me a liar and a whore.

Bring it on, I say.

**End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I really wanted to write some Nick/June fluff at the end, but they just wouldn't let me!  
> Thank you to everyone who has read until the end. Thank you to those who have left comments and kudos, it is much appreciated. I'm not sure if I will write anything else, life is very busy, but I have enjoyed writing this. It has been a chance to escape for a little while from the crazy stuff happening in the real world right now, and I hope that it has offered the same for a short time for people who have been reading. Best wishes to all, AN.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song by Lily Allen. Sample lyric: 'we've never had it so good, we're out of the woods/and if you can't detect the sarcasm you've misunderstood'.


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